Question Don't see files in External harddrive

[RJ5929]

I have a WD my passport external hard drive . I know it's storage is at least 1TB or more. I have lot of files in it.

Recently I was upgrading my laptop from Windows to Windows 11 and it asked for an external hard drive and I used this folder to download/install Windows 11. I am not sure what exactly I did then. But I know I chose external hard drive to download installation files.

Now in "This PC" this hard drive shows as 21 GB free of 31 GB. And I see only some installation and setup files which after clicking start windows 11 installation.

Did I lose all my files? anyway to recover?

 

[USAFRet]

Did I lose all my files?

That procedure warns you, at least twice, that it WILL reformat the drive and wipe everything off whatever drive you're using.

 

[RJ5929]

That procedure warns you, at least twice, that it WILL reformat the drive and wipe everything off whatever drive you're using.

so all gone? why does hard drive show 21gb of 31 gb when total storage was supposed to be 1 TB or more

 

[USAFRet]

so all gone? why does hard drive show 21gb of 31 gb when total storage was supposed to be 1 TB or more

The MediaCreation tool reformatted the drive to FAT32.
Which is a 32GB max partition size.

From the Win 11 download, where you get the MediaCreation tool and proceed to do it...
https://www.microsoft.com/software-download/windows11

" We recommend using a blank USB or blank DVD, because any content on it will be deleted during installation."


And again when you're using the tool, and tell it specifically what drive to use, it says the same.

Messages like this are written for a reason.

 

[RJ5929]

The MediaCreation tool reformatted the drive to FAT32.
Which is a 32GB max partition size.

From the Win 11 download, where you get the MediaCreation tool and proceed to do it...
https://www.microsoft.com/software-download/windows11

" We recommend using a blank USB or blank DVD, because any content on it will be deleted during installation."


And again when you're using the tool, and tell it specifically what drive to use, it says the same.

Messages like this are written for a reason.

thanks.