My brothers computer (Windows XP) has been having issues for a couple months now, (the usual) so it's been shut down and unplugged. I just fired it up an hour ago and booted into safe mode to prepare for a format. I told him to drag everything he wanted to save into a single folder on the desktop so I could come up with my external drive and back it up and reformat/reinstall windows.

I wasn't there, but he said he tried to cut his iTunes folder from it's program directory to the desktop. It went about 10% and stopped at a certain file because the computer said that file was in use and couldn't be moved. Not wanting half his music on the desktop and half unmoved, he put the 10% that had successfully transferred back into the original iTunes folder and deleted the now empty iTunes folder that was on the desktop.

He cancelled the unresponsive instance of iTunes that was apparently running in the background (this is what caused the file move to abort) and tried to simply drag+drop the iTunes folder to the desktop. It took about 3 minutes to transfer and completed.

After it successfully moved, he opened the iTunes folder (now on the desktop) to verify that all his music was there. It was, so he closed it. The instant he closed this folder, the icon for that folder disappeared from the desktop and now none of the files, or the folder, are anywhere to be found.

Wtf?