I have this external HDD conneting through USB and somehow all my files were gone when I plugged it in one day. Does anyone know how to my files can be recovered? By the way, I know the files are still there because the external HDD shows that I have used space.
Might try unplugging it and connecting it again. If not there is porgrams you can find (free) on the internet, where you can recover deleted files. Just google it!
I googled and tried 2 programs, Active@Recovery and Active@ Undelete but some error message would pop up during and then I don’t know what else to do… Any other programs easy enough that I can understand and should try?
if you haven’t already, I’d try a reboot of your machine, once with the HDD uplugged, and if still no luck, leave it plugged in during the reboot.
Checkdisk might want to take a look at it.
I use a portable HDD a fair bit and very occasionally I get blips like that.
[quote=“truant”]if you haven’t already, I’d try a reboot of your machine, once with the HDD uplugged, and if still no luck, leave it plugged in during the reboot.
Checkdisk might want to take a look at it.
[/quote]
I tried that but there was still nothing… Should I perhaps do a error check? Would that possibly help?
Also I should mention that I think I might have unplugged the USB when it was still running, thus it didn’t write correctly and then leading to loss of index files?
[quote=“Sweetie”][quote=“truant”]if you haven’t already, I’d try a reboot of your machine, once with the HDD uplugged, and if still no luck, leave it plugged in during the reboot.
Checkdisk might want to take a look at it.
[/quote]
I tried that but there was still nothing… Should I perhaps do a error check? Would that possibly help?
Also I should mention that I think I might have unplugged the USB when it was still running, thus it didn’t write correctly and then leading to loss of index files?[/quote]
yep, I think unplugging it while writing may have screwed the File Allocation Table. I don’t really know too much about these things, but I’m sure someone else here will, but your files won’t be deleted as such, so won’t need to be recovered, it’s just that your PC can’t look at the FAT to find them. Try running the XP error check on it, nothing to lose.
Thanks, I guess I will indeed try the error check and see perhaps if i can get the File Allocation Table back, as you said, nothing to lose.
If it is the FAT that’s gone kaput, I’m pretty sure there’s a way to fix it. If I remember right, there’s an option under the Recovery Console (which you can choose to start up in if you fire up the computer with your WinXP CD in) that can repair damaged FATs. I’ll see what I can find.
Koo… Thanks!
Mmm… I did the error checking and um it didn’t work.
Tetsuo - Can you please find out more about the CD procedures? Thanks!
Maybe the problem is your computer can not find the external HD. Please check if the drive appear after connected to computer in the [My Computer].
If there are, right click on the drive you want to recover, choose [property/tools/Check now]. After that, I think XP will show you to reboot to check.
Good luck.
[quote=“tiebob”]Maybe the problem is your computer can not find the external HD. Please check if the drive appear after connected to computer in the [My Computer].
If there are, right click on the drive you want to recover, choose [property/tools/Check now]. After that, I think XP will show you to reboot to check.
Good luck.[/quote]
Um… that’s what I did, do error check, right? It didn’t restart at all, took like a minute to do the error check as well, so that means it can’t find anything… 
[quote=“Sweetie”][quote=“tiebob”]Maybe the problem is your computer can not find the external HD. Please check if the drive appear after connected to computer in the [My Computer].
If there are, right click on the drive you want to recover, choose [property/tools/Check now]. After that, I think XP will show you to reboot to check.
Good luck.[/quote]
Um… that’s what I did, do error check, right? It didn’t restart at all, took like a minute to do the error check as well, so that means it can’t find anything… [/quote]
Oh! it’s a problem. When XP restart, sometimes it will reboot from HD of USB device first. It is not good.
But not be sad, in cases of mine, I powered off HD, placed it somewhere for days(maybe one or two weeks). Then connected again. Owww, It reback again…
I don’t know why, but maybe you can try it if the files are very important.
Good Luck!
PS: When the error HD reback, I will backup all files I need out.
The biggest problem you have now is that you don’t know what’s wrong. There are many things that could be wrong in this case:
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Have you ever tried the drive with another person’s computer? Then you can make sure that the problem is with the external USB hard drive and not something that’s wrong with your computer/drivers.
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If you have a spare drive you can try it in the enclosure. Then you will know if it is a problem with the drive, not the enclosure.
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Check out this post on everythingusb, a brief post about USB troubleshooting.
[quote=“twocs”]1. Have you ever tried the drive with another person’s computer? Then you can make sure that the problem is with the external USB hard drive and not something that’s wrong with your computer/drivers.
[/quote]
I tried connectiong to another computer, the drive showed but not the files, that’s the same thing as plugged in to my computer.
It worked for me. Recently I had a Maxtor 80GB (IDE connection) “disappear” from Windows XP. At first all the partitions and files were visible in Explorer but couldn’t be accessed; then the entire hard drive disappeared from Explorer and Disk Management. There had been no signs of impending HD failure. I booted to Knoppix, which could see all the files and gave me the means to transfer them to another HD.
You can download Knoppix (free) from this site: knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html
If you give this a try, you might want to move your HD to an IDE cable first to avoid any issues with the USB connection.
Good luck.
I just looked into it - I think I remembered incorrectly. Unless some other geek out there can confirm or deny whether it could be an MBR fault. Not that it sounds like it.
As for the Knoppix suggestion - that might not be as easy as it sounds. Knoppix by default disables writing to installed drives, and if you’re not too comfortable messing about with it it might be a bit of a problem getting write access going. Unless you’re willing to let someone else do that part.
Actually I am leaning towards doing it myself… So please if anyone can come up with an easier way of getting the files back, that would be nice. Thanks!
Actually, booting with Knoppix (or any other Linux live-cd, for that matter) might be a good idea, especially if the drive is NTFS. All the “recovery” programs might screw up the drive beyond repair.
I’ve had similar problems with two hard drives (one NTFS, the other FAT32), and I’ve been able to recover everything from Linux. You don’t even need write access to the faulty drive.
You could try a “friendly” Linux CD (like Suse for example), which should be able to mount all the partitions without too much hassle.
[quote=“Andre”]
Actually, booting with Knoppix (or any other Linux live-cd, for that matter) might be a good idea, especially if the drive is NTFS. All the “recovery” programs might screw up the drive beyond repair.
I’ve had similar problems with two hard drives (one NTFS, the other FAT32), and I’ve been able to recover everything from Linux. You don’t even need write access to the faulty drive.
You could try a “friendly” Linux CD (like Suse for example), which should be able to mount all the partitions without too much hassle.[/quote]
I went to the website and dunno which one to use… But would it be possible if anyone can let me know how to do this step by step? Either with Knoppix or with SuSE.? Thanks!