Posted on 01/06/2018 7:42:50 AM PST by pabianice
I use an external hard drive to backup the files on my C drive. Have had it for years. Turned it on this AM and it is blank. It is formatted but all the saved files (about 100GB) are gone. Poof. Can anyone help explain what happened? Thanks.
The FAT table got messed up?
James Clapper.
Oh, my gosh! I hope you get your files back somehow.
No lecture, but this is why I have at least three copies of any critical files on separate drives.
Ask Hillary.
“External Hard Drive Wiped”
With a cloth?
You mean like wiped with a cloth or something?
There are a number of free/shareware utilities that can analyze/repair/restore data drives - below are a few. Some only allow so much data to be restored with the ‘free’ version. Just make sure that when you restore data - initially at least, that you restore to a DIFFERENT DRIVE - so as not to over-write the missing data on your problem drive.
Good luck.
https://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html
https://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/free-data-recovery-software.htm
“It may be possible with the right software to recover the files, or at least most of them.”
Correct. The info could still be there, just “hidden”.
“from pabianice
Ask Hillary.” LOLLOLLOLLOL
It’s not wiped. The drive failed but all the data is still there. There are data recovery company’s out there but it is not cheap. Gilware is the one I use. They will look at it for free, and give you a quote for the recovered data.
Great minds.
From a link by \/\/ayne
Hello,
Try this 1.
Check whether files are not in hidden mode.
Click on “Start” —> In search box, type cmd and press “Enter”.
Command prompt will be opened.
Here I assume your External hard drive letter as G:
Enter this command.
attrib -h -r -s /s /d g:\*.*
You can copy the above command —> Right-click in the Command Prompt and
paste it.
Note : Don’t forget to replace the letter g with your External hard drive letter.
Now press “Enter”.
Now check for your files in your External hard drive.
Good Luck.
If the files are valuable, take it or ship it to a professional data recovery service. May cost you $200 or so to get your files back.. unless the drive was low-level formatted which is unlikely. Google hard disk recovery.
If you need data security, then a drive you have ‘had for years’ may be too old to be counted reliable. As well, many of the off the shelf USB drives are about as low end on the quality scale as can be made. I would always consider them, from an optimal reliability framework, as a three year investment. Unless you build or buy prebuilt a better quality device, then replacing your backup on a three year basis is safest.
It doesn’t sound from your post like you lost data, that you were just wondering why a drive that has always worked all of a sudden doesn’t. Which is great. Good backup methodology has no data ever in just one place.
Are you logged in?
I’ve got a huge video library on my Synology server. The server is backed up to two external drives.
Just yesterday, I started getting nervous about having only two backups and purchased a third 8TB WD external drive for $185 on Amazon.
Couldn’t agree more with your advice.
The Synology server performs SMART checks on the two drives, so I’m able to monitor their health. It has been a fantastic home media solution.
Is your C: data store still viable?
Make a new backup on a new external drive.
Then, do it again. Always keep a second (or even a third) backup of critical files.
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