External HDD help ! Urgent!

  • Thread starter Addict3d
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Addict3d

Addict3d

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Portugal
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Mr_M1m3
hello everybody,

i was moving my old pc's files to my external HDD, and everything went with zero trouble, then i moved it to my new laptop wich i just bought, and it shows the HDD is full,wich it is, but it doesnt show any folders, just some music files that dont work. .

the biggest problem is that this thing is full of my father's school work stuff, and h will kill me if i dont get this working as it was. .

thanks
 
i checked on my old pc and it only shows the same thing, and i removed it safely and all with zero trouble. . thats why im finding it so odd
 
moved. . i do regular backups. . my dad actually uses it everyday, and today i was moving everything, i filled the hdd, i connect it to my new pc, it installs "fine" and when i check it, it shows 20 something music files that dont work, and no folders whatsoever. . but it shows that the unit is full .
 
Did you install the software before and have you looked at the Company's website for answer?
 
If you do backups all the time, then just revert to your second copy and the data will be there. If it's not on two hard drives then it is an archive drive, not a backup drive.

It sounds like the data is corrupted and since the same thing is happening on two computers (and I'm assuming the drive isn't making any strange noises) you will need to try some data recovery software.

Data Rescue PC has a free demo that you can download and it will list out your files and you can pick any one file (up to 5MB and preferably a file you are certain is there but can't see currently) and if it works for that file, then it 'should' work for all the files on the drive and you can recover them onto another hard drive.

If the program can't recover the file, you can try googling for some other Data Recovery software (Data Rescue 3 is the best AFAIK), but it's what we recommended using when I worked at LaCie and runs around $100. I've personally had success with it not only in essentially your same situation, but also after I used Norton Ghost, got the hard drives switched and it formatted my hard drive with all the important data on it :dunce: But I was able to get all that data back in both instances.

A last resort would be a Data Recovery Company like Drive Savers or On Track. They are several times more expensive than the Data Rescue, but if there is a single hard drive in this hard drive case, it may not be too much. Also, after the data is recovered, be sure to repartition the drive and not just format it as the repartitioning will correct the corruption. And while you may not feel like it, you can continue to use the hard drive, but maybe it's time to buy a second hard drive as your backup?

Good luck dude.

Jerome
 
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Hello Addict3d,

It seems that your external HDD is corrupted so that now if you want to recover the data then you have to use some data recovery software for the purpose of retrieving your's data. You can check out Kernel for hard disk data recovery software for recovering the data, in demo version you can see the all types of files and can save them by selecting individual files.

Thanks
 
You may want to grab a copy of Easy Recovery Pro. This is a very good tool for recovering files from a corrupted drive which I have had success with in the past. Be aware that if you use this type of tool it could take a long time to process the drive depending on the problem with the drive and the size of it. It is not uncommon for it to take a couple of hours or more on larger drives.
 
You could try disassembling the unit and mounting the bare drive direct in a PC, but it sounds like the file allocation table is screwed.

I've successfully used R-Studio to recover data from a drive that Windows wouldn't even acknowledge to be there. Has the same sort of "try before you buy" model as others mentioned above.

If you go to a professional recovery service, have your dad check out the house insurance policy. Mine includes a provision for specialist data recovery services of up to £2,500, so yours may have something similar.
 
Using Easy Recovery Pro I have managed to recover all the data from drives where windows would tell me "this drive is not formatted. Would you like to format now?" I have also recovered drives that would not even show up in windows drive manager and drives where the FAT or NTFS systems was corrupted to the point that I had to tell the software what format the drive was in. So far it has worked on every drive but 1 and that one had a burned out motor. Requires more than software to recover data from a drive that does not spin.
 

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