Huge folders missing from 2TB external hard drive, but space is still taken up?

[GlitchPhD]

Hello,

So, a while ago I had ripped my entire series of The Incredible Hulk on DVD in .VOB format (including the 3 movies after) which took up about ~160 GB, and a season of SpongeBob, which I'm guessing took up ~7 GB. I usually rip them on my 8 year old Windows 7 laptop, and watch it on my Windows 10 desktop (because the ripping program I have only has a license on the laptop.) I go to transfer them into another folder on my Windows 7 laptop (within the external hard drive itself) along with another file added in, and it worked fine. I just woke up today and found the folders to be missing, and instead of the hard drive saying 1.33 TB left, it now says 1.32 left. To make things even weirder, a couple of the folders I had in there were in the Windows 7 recycling bin, and when I restored them, they were completely empty. This ripping process took a while and I would rather not have to do it again, especially if they are somehow still in there. Any help would be very much appreciated. Thank you to anyone in advance who can help me out.

 

[Herc08]

Have you right clicked, went to Properties, and check hidden folders? It may be in the built-in recycle bin. Check that first.

 

[GlitchPhD]

Have you right clicked, went to Properties, and check hidden folders? It may be in the built-in recycle bin. Check that first.

Yeah I've already checked the hidden system files and the Recycle Bin on it, nothing there. :/

 

[Andy_K]

Could have somehow been lost from the File Allocation Table, unlikely, but worth a shot if you try the show hidden folders and that doesn't work,

you can use a tool like https://www.piriform.com/recuva to hunt them down.

I'd like to point out that this isn't always a 100% solution

 

[USAFRet]

Install and run WinDirStat. It may help discover where they are.

 

[GlitchPhD]

Could have somehow been lost from the File Allocation Table, unlikely, but worth a shot if you try the show hidden folders and that doesn't work,

you can use a tool like https://www.piriform.com/recuva to hunt them down.

I'd like to point out that this isn't always a 100% solution

Well, it kind of worked but not quite. I noticed that, for some reason, it had in one of my folders the contents of a webpage that I accidentally downloaded, and it had it in the folder I made last night on my laptop. I am extremely confused at this point.

 

[GlitchPhD]

Install and run WinDirStat. It may help discover where they are.

Well that certainly opened up more things, but unfortunately I was still unable to find my folder with my shows. However, I noticed in one of the recycle bin things on the external hard drive, that some contents of some Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas mod files were in there. I never deleted them before, this just all makes no sense.