External Hard drive missing half my files! Help!

[joe23]

Just the other day, when i plugged in my 1.5 TB external hdd, i noticed that all files from the letter
A to L loaded up fine and appeared but I couldn't find or see any files/folders that started with the
letter M to Z! They are just missing!

But my memory usage is still the same so nothing got deleted or overwritten. It's as if though it just became invisible and I can't find anyway to access or find those files to retrieve them!

Does anyone know what happened or how I can retrieve those files?

Notes:
-I've checked the show hidden files / system files box
-I'm running on win xp
-I've tried connecting the ext hdd to another pc and same result (m-z do not show up)
-I can still transfer data to and from the ext drive without any error messages, but anything named
with the letter M to Z will disappear the moment it goes into the external hdd.
-I tried chkdsk and error fixing options and both said after a few seconds of scanning there was an unreadable or corruption part?
-the external hdd is 1.5 years old
-I've used up 1.1 TB of space out of the 1.5 TB total. That hasn't changed at all, so the data must still
be on the hdd, I just can't see it or find it anymore.

 

[znhunter]

had the same exact issue!

run chkdsk

go to a cmd prompt type in

chkdsk c: /r

NOTE if the drive is g or whatever than instead of c: type g:

it will take a while wait it out it will fix it all

I don't know if this thread is too dead, but when I go to do that, it says: "The type of the file system is RAW. CHKDSK is not available for RAW drives." what does this mean?

 

[djg00s3]

go to your disk management and right click on the drive. change letter and just delete the letter assigned for the drive. then try to left click and go to properties of the drive that you took the letter off. go to the security tab, go to advaced and go to owner. make sure you're the owner. thanafter that is done click ok until the property tab closes to implement the new changes. after go back to the property security tab of drive and hit edit, and delete all the users and add just yourself and give it all full permissions. than hit ok and ass a letter to the drive again and see if it works. if not i tried unmounting and remounting a couple of times and make sure permissions havent changed

 

[Jaccrowe]

Hi joe23,

please try these command to recover your missing files

attrib -s -h /s /d

first you go to command prompt ( start then click run and type cmd or command on the textbox)

next, the command prompt will appear..
you need to find out what the drive location of your external HD..

then type this..
for example your external hard drive on F:

f:attrib -s -h /s /d

then enter
...
and wait after few minutes and the files will recovered..
sometimes you will see the folder with no name ..what you can do is to open it..your files is inside..

i think it will help you to out.. ^_^

This worked very well for me

Thanks alot!!

Really appreciate

 

[Claude van der Ryst]

Hi guys

I know this is an old thread, but have a similar problem I hope someone can shed some light on. Have searched around for a solution, but with no luck.

What I experience is as follow:

I have few external hard drive that I use for different uses (Main data drive, mirror of data drive, DJ Wav drive & Mirror of DJ Wav drive).

From time to time when I connect the any of these drives, i will get the following message. "There might be a problem with some files on this device or disc. This can happen if you remove the device or disc before all files have been written to it."

So by ignoring the message, I will find that some of the files and folders will be missing on the drive. So I will select the Scan & Fix option from this pop up and when completed, the missing files and folders are recovered.

I do use the safely remove option on the task bar to safely remove the drives. Doubt it could be a virus or malicious software as I keep my anti virus up to date and don't install any suspicious software.

Any suggestions or where I can start trouble shooting?

Many thanks

 

[Someone Somewhere]

I suggest you post a thread of your own - it can be confusing otherwise.

I take it you've read all the stickies?

Doesn't ring any bells, sorry.

 

[Claude van der Ryst]

I suggest you post a thread of your own - it can be confusing otherwise.

I take it you've read all the stickies?

Doesn't ring any bells, sorry.

Thanks

I have read and searched around. And no luck.

Will start a new thread.