Yesterday I was looking in My Pictures folder for a photo of my pets, and it completely disappeared, ans so did my folder of a collection of jokes in My Documents.
I was not able to find it Search *.jpg or similar.

Help would be greatly appreciated

Avik

go to start/control panel/folder options/view , and clik show hidden files and see if they show up.

Wow, that's a weird one. I would run a virus scan, rootkit scan, and any other malware app you have. Did you add any new software lately? Partition a drive, delete some picture manipulation app/program? More detail please, as in gen hardware and OS, any recent hardware/software changes/upgrades.