Seagate Backup Plus 3TB displays all empty folders, despite containing 2TB of data!

[pman58]

Have had a Seagate Backup Plus 3TB external HD for 2 yrs, and it's worked perfectly until yesterday.
Now it displays nothing but empty folders, though it contains over 2TB of data! I cannot add any files to the drive.
The Disk Management dialog box reads it as 'Healthy'. There is a question mark next to its icon on the desktop. The light on the drive sometimes works, but usually not.
I've tried unplugging and plugging the USB cable and the power cable to no avail.
I'm running Windows 7 on a desktop PC. Help!

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey there, pman58.

I'd recommend that you try the drive with a different USB cable (preferably not longer than 12") and a different computer, to see if the same thing happens again. You could also try accessing it via Linux Live DVD/USB, to see if it's properly recognized and if you can get to your data. If none of this works, one of the possibilities is to take the drive out of it's enclosure, but note that this is not really recommended and it should be used only as a last resort. This would also void the warranty of the drive. Your other options are data recovery software: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-1644496/lost-data-recovery.html, or a data recovery company.

Hope that helps.
Boogieman_WD

 

[pman58]

Thanks a bunch Boogieman! I'll give it a shot!