External HD hard drive

[genesis1949]

I have a Verbatim HD SNS 2TB external hard drive that today is showing 32 GB. It has not been dropped. Would someone PLEASE tell me what could have happened? Will I be able to recover all my files? The 2 TB hard drive was almost full.

 

[seagate_surfer]

I have a Verbatim HD SNS 2TB external hard drive that today is showing 32 GB. It has not been dropped. Would someone PLEASE tell me what could have happened? Will I be able to recover all my files? The 2 TB hard drive was almost full.

Hi genesis1949,

Could you please share a screenshot of your Disk Management ?

 

[genesis1949]

Have the screenshot. How do I get it to you?

 

[seagate_surfer]

Have the screenshot. How do I get it to you?

Select picture option and copy the URL from where you saved it (IMGUR) .

 

[genesis1949]

Have the screenshot. How do I get it to you?

Select picture option and copy the URL from where you saved it (IMGUR) .

I apologize for my ignorance. I do not anything about a URL. The screenshot is a JPEG in my picture folder on my computer.

 

[seagate_surfer]

I apologize for my ignorance. I do not anything about a URL. The screenshot is a JPEG in my picture folder on my computer.

No worries. You would need to upload the jpeg on your computer to IMGUR and once it is uploaded, copy the URL and paste it the option of adding a pic to the forum. Here is a video on how to do it.

 

[genesis1949]

https://imgur.com/a/n0jnyHq

 

[genesis1949]

I apologize for my ignorance. I do not anything about a URL. The screenshot is a JPEG in my picture folder on my computer.

No worries. You would need to upload the jpeg on your computer to IMGUR and once it is uploaded, copy the URL and paste it the option of adding a pic to the forum. Here is a video on how to do it.

https://imgur.com/JqWtdzu

 

[seagate_surfer]

I apologize for my ignorance. I do not anything about a URL. The screenshot is a JPEG in my picture folder on my computer.

No worries. You would need to upload the jpeg on your computer to IMGUR and once it is uploaded, copy the URL and paste it the option of adding a pic to the forum. Here is a video on how to do it.

https://imgur.com/JqWtdzu

Good! Now we need a pic of the disk management not device manager. This is a pic of disk management.

 

[genesis1949]

I apologize for my ignorance. I do not anything about a URL. The screenshot is a JPEG in my picture folder on my computer.

No worries. You would need to upload the jpeg on your computer to IMGUR and once it is uploaded, copy the URL and paste it the option of adding a pic to the forum. Here is a video on how to do it.

https://imgur.com/JqWtdzu

Good! Now we need a pic of the disk management not device manager. This is a pic of disk management.

https://imgur.com/a/L2U5pGS

 

[seagate_surfer]

genesis1949, thanks for the picture. The problem is that the controller on that drive went bad, which means that the drive is damaged. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news on this.

You may try to use Recuva or Test Disk and see what happens. Best of luck.

 

[USAFRet]

Are we sure it wasn't just formatted to FAT32? That would show it as a 32GB volume.

What was the last thing you did before this happened?

 

[genesis1949]

genesis1949, thanks for the picture. The problem is that the controller on that drive went bad, which means that the drive is damaged. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news on this.

You may try to use Recuva or Test Disk and see what happens. Best of luck.

Thanks for the information. If the files are recoverable, is there any way to save the drive? I've read about moving the partition and formatting the drive to full 2 TB. Not sure, if this can be done on this drive. I would need to buy an additional hard drive to put the recovered files, possibly an 8 or 10 TB. Thanks for any more information you can provide.

 

[robert600]

I have a Verbatim HD SNS 2TB external hard drive that today is showing 32 GB. It has not been dropped. Would someone PLEASE tell me what could have happened? Will I be able to recover all my files? The 2 TB hard drive was almost full.

Since it's an external ... do you have access to a different computer that you could plug it into? Not likely to be any different but worth a try.

 

[genesis1949]

I have a Verbatim HD SNS 2TB external hard drive that today is showing 32 GB. It has not been dropped. Would someone PLEASE tell me what could have happened? Will I be able to recover all my files? The 2 TB hard drive was almost full.

Since it's an external ... do you have access to a different computer that you could plug it into? Not likely to be any different but worth a try.

Yes.two

 

[genesis1949]

I have a Verbatim HD SNS 2TB external hard drive that today is showing 32 GB. It has not been dropped. Would someone PLEASE tell me what could have happened? Will I be able to recover all my files? The 2 TB hard drive was almost full.

Since it's an external ... do you have access to a different computer that you could plug it into? Not likely to be any different but worth a try.

Tried the other computers. Still same results. Would it be possible to change out the controller in the hard drive? To do that though, I would need know how to open the case to see what brand of drive. There are no visible screws on the outside of the case. There must be a way to open it. Thanks

 

[USAFRet]

Tried the other computers. Still same results. Would it be possible to change out the controller in the hard drive? To do that though, I would need know how to open the case to see what brand of drive. There are no visible screws on the outside of the case. There must be a way to open it. Thanks

What happens if you try to delete all partitions on it, and reformat the whole drive.
NTFS.

 

[genesis1949]

Tried the other computers. Still same results. Would it be possible to change out the controller in the hard drive? To do that though, I would need know how to open the case to see what brand of drive. There are no visible screws on the outside of the case. There must be a way to open it. Thanks

What happens if you try to delete all partitions on it, and reformat the whole drive.
NTFS.

I probably could. I want to try and recover the files that were on it first. Not sure how though to do it. Is NTFS better than FAT32?

 

[USAFRet]

I probably could. I want to try and recover the files that were on it first. Not sure how though to do it. Is NTFS better than FAT32?

Well.

It was formatted as normal NTFS, showing 2TB.
"Somehow", it got formatted to FAT32, now showing 32GB.
And you wish to recover the data.

Again...how did it get formatted to FAT32? Did you possibly use that drive as a Windows installer?
Potential recovery depends on what you've done with this drive in the interim.

Instead of assuming broken and dismantling the thing, possibly use one of the partition recovery tools?

Minitool
https://www.minitool.com/

TestDisk
https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

Possibility of success? You won't know until you try.
And you'll almost certainly need another drive to possibly recover to. You can't "recover" on that same physical drive.
And highly unlikely it will come back 100% perfectly as it was originally.


Again, what was the last thing you did with it?

 

[genesis1949]

I probably could. I want to try and recover the files that were on it first. Not sure how though to do it. Is NTFS better than FAT32?

Well.

It was formatted as normal NTFS, showing 2TB.
"Somehow", it got formatted to FAT32, now showing 32GB.
And you wish to recover the data.

Again...how did it get formatted to FAT32? Did you possibly use that drive as a Windows installer?
Potential recovery depends on what you've done with this drive in the interim.

Instead of assuming broken and dismantling the thing, possibly use one of the partition recovery tools?

Minitool
https://www.minitool.com/

TestDisk
https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

Possibility of success? You won't know until you try.
And you'll almost certainly need another drive to possibly recover to. You can't "recover" on that same physical drive.
And highly unlikely it will come back 100% perfectly as it was originally.


Again, what was the last thing you did with it?

I did nothing to it. I had not check it in a few weeks until the other day when I first ask for help, that I noticed it was showing only 32 GB.

 

[USAFRet]

Data first, then try to "fix" it back to 2TB.

Try the above mentioned applications to maybe retrieve the data.

 

[genesis1949]

Data first, then try to "fix" it back to 2TB.

Try the above mentioned applications to maybe retrieve the data.

ok, I ran the Mini Tool Power Data Recovery and it recovered 15.65 GB in 14,106 files. There should be more. There should have been recovered at least 2 TB or more.

 

[USAFRet]

ok, I ran the Mini Tool Power Data Recovery and it recovered 15.65 GB in 14,106 files. There should be more. There should have been recovered at least 2 TB or more.

Recovery is hit or miss. You'll almost certainly not get "everything" back.
And it can't be "at least 2 TB or more"....it is only a 2TB drive.

 

[genesis1949]

ok, I ran the Mini Tool Power Data Recovery and it recovered 15.65 GB in 14,106 files. There should be more. There should have been recovered at least 2 TB or more.

Recovery is hit or miss. You'll almost certainly not get "everything" back.
And it can't be "at least 2 TB or more"....it is only a 2TB drive.

the program link you gave me will not recover any data without having to buy it. what would be the purpose of buying a recovery program to recover a 2 TB hard drive if a person cannot get the full 2 TB.

 

[USAFRet]

Did you try the other one, TestDisk?

And you said "at least 2 TB or more".
"More than" 2TB doesn't fit in a 2TB drive....


In any case, this is easily prevented (for the next time) with an actual backup.