Question Missing pictures on hard drives ?

May 15, 2022
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Someone removed all of the hard drives from all my old desktop computers to use a toaster to get all of my old pics off of them. They are not finding one single picture on any of them. I know each one has tons on them . There are no folders on the desktop and nothing in the pictures folders. Suggestions please?
 
If the drives came out of a Win95 box, then they would probably support LBA mode. Very old drives only support CHS mode. Therefore, CHS mode is probably not an issue.

Are these 3.5" drives or 2.5"?

There are no folders on the desktop and nothing in the pictures folders.

Does this mean that you can see something on these drives?
 
You can get a list of all the files on the IDE drive by executing the following command from the CMD prompt:

Code:
dir X:\ /b /s > Y:\pathname\X_file_list.txt

X: is the drive letter of the IDE drive.

"Y:\pathname" is the drive letter and folder of the destination drive.

"X_file_list.txt" is the text file which will contain your file list.

Tell her to give you that list, and you can then search it with a text editor such as NotePad.
 
May 15, 2022
9
0
10
If the drives came out of a Win95 box, then they would probably support LBA mode. Very old drives only support CHS mode. Therefore, CHS mode is probably not an issue.

Are these 3.5" drives or 2.5"?



Does this mean that you can see something on these drives?

Yes she can see folders, just no pictures. Which is why I'm confused. All I ever owned were digital cameras that you had to connect to the computer to upload them, so I know they are there. Some of the drives have to be from 2002.
Not sure what size they are.
 
Yes she can see folders, just no pictures. Which is why I'm confused. All I ever owned were digital cameras that you had to connect to the computer to upload them, so I know they are there. Some of the drives have to be from 2002.
Not sure what size they are.

Is this random person doing the work for you a computer tech or just someone you know? How exactly are the images being looked for? What view is being used on the computer? Hidden and system files view turned on? View extensions turned on? If you were putting the files on the computer, where were they stored? If you know the location you can just go to that directory and see if they are there. Since some files are seen the drives and the adapters to read them look to be working, you may just need someone else to look for the files you want that knows how computers work better than whoever is doing it now.
 
May 15, 2022
9
0
10
Is this random person doing the work for you a computer tech or just someone you know? How exactly are the images being looked for? What view is being used on the computer? Hidden and system files view turned on? View extensions turned on? If you were putting the files on the computer, where were they stored? If you know the location you can just go to that directory and see if they are there. Since some files are seen the drives and the adapters to read them look to be working, you may just need someone else to look for the files you want that knows how computers work better than whoever is doing it now.

She is an IT person, granted she is recently graduated and is doing it for nothing.

I have given her all of the suggestions from everyone in this thread and she will be attempting them later this evening.

I will pass this message along and get her responses to your questions
 

Ralston18

Titan
Moderator
Regarding : " All I ever owned were digital cameras that you had to connect to the computer to upload them, so I know they are there. Some of the drives have to be from 2002. "

Do you remember what cameras and/or software you were using?

May be some older or proprietary digital image format.

FYI:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_file_format

Find out more about what "stuff" she is seeing.

Especially file types.

Bit of a long shot but no harm in asking...