Friday a.m.-Recently received email from Microsoft stating that customers would no longer be able to link email accounts because of security reasons.

I have two Hotmail accounts: one is *** Email address is removed for privacy *** (1) the other is *** Email address is removed for privacy *** (2) (I will refer to these accounts as "1" and "2").

Ok....so, I rarely use 1 because it's very old and I get nothing in that account accept websites I've subscribed to, spam, etc. However, I've kept it active because I use it as a backup. Account #2 is my main account that I've also had for many years, just not as long.

Because of this warning email from Microsoft that they will no longer let customers link their accounts, I went to deactivate or erase #1. I followed the directions and somehow, some way after I completed the process, every folder (including every email, pic, document, etc.) was erased from account #2!!

As you can imagine, sheer panic has set in as I have saved everything in this account-taxes, home purchase paperwork, old pics, etc. I have contacted Microsoft numerous times (3 different representatives) and they cannot help me. They have informed me to post on this forum for answers.

Now, Friday's date was July 5th. I have tried to recover from the deleted folder and it will only go back to the 5th. For instance, anything I delted prior to July 5th is unretrieveable. Also, these folders (with emails) were not deleted. When I tried unlinking these accounts, these folders vanished and set the account back to what would be considered a factory reset. Meaning, the account still works, it's still active, my password still works, but it was wiped clean.

I will try to answer any more questions that you may have.

Thank you.