Seagate Storage shows files exist but they can't be seen.

[lauren-23]

Hello - I have a Seagate 4TB external hard drive with approximately 1TB of movies and photos on it. I haven't used it (or moved it) in three months and today plugged it in and all but five files are now missing. It shows as having nothing but five files on it, but when running the free Seagate file recovery scan, they show as being there. But of course, I have to pay a big fee just to "see" if they are recoverable.My question is - where might these files now be and why can't I "see" them if they aren't actually deleted. I have the Seagate through a MAC OS 10.11.2, so am not sure how I go about discovering hidden files, etc.

Any help would be appreciated.
Thank you.

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Welcome to the community, Lauren!

You should try UN-hiding the folders from Terminal on your Mac following these step-by-steps .
If it still doesn't help, I'd strongly advise you to run the Repair option from Disk Utility and test your external HDD for any potential defects.
Make sure you backup your files regularly and store them on, at least, one more storage device. This is the best way to prevent any potential data loss.

Good luck! Hope this helps you!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[lauren-23]

Welcome to the community, Lauren!

You should try UN-hiding the folders from Terminal on your Mac following these step-by-steps .
If it still doesn't help, I'd strongly advise you to run the Repair option from Disk Utility and test your external HDD for any potential defects.
Make sure you backup your files regularly and store them on, at least, one more storage device. This is the best way to prevent any potential data loss.

Good luck! Hope this helps you!
SuperSoph_WD

Thanks so much for your response! I gave it a try, but no luck. The problem lies on my external hard drive, so not sure if the files being 'unhidden' on my computer will also translate to them being unhidden on my hard drive?

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hey there again, Lauren!

You can still perform the steps to un-hiding the files and folders on your external through Terminal. You simply need to use the proper commands and specify the storage location. I believe there's a discussion from the Apple community that might shed some light on the procedure and the specific commands.

Best of luck!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[lauren-23]

Hey there again, Lauren!

You can still perform the steps to un-hiding the files and folders on your external through Terminal. You simply need to use the proper commands and specify the storage location. I believe there's a discussion from the Apple community that might shed some light on the procedure and the specific commands.

Best of luck!
SuperSoph_WD

I thank you so much for this link. I've checked it out, but after reading it, I'm unclear on the command I should use in Terminal for my own situation? I have a Seagate External Hard Drive. Unfortunately I'm not well-versed in using terminal, so am not sure how to "point" it towards my hard drive and not my computer.

Any advice would be most appreciated! Thank you.

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

I thank you so much for this link. I've checked it out, but after reading it, I'm unclear on the command I should use in Terminal for my own situation? I have a Seagate External Hard Drive. Unfortunately I'm not well-versed in using terminal, so am not sure how to "point" it towards my hard drive and not my computer.

Any advice would be most appreciated! Thank you.

Hi again, Lauren!

I believe that a YouTube tutorial might help you with these step-by-steps. However, I'm not sure I'm going to be able to assist you without having some screenshots from Disk Utility and how the external HDD appears on your Macbook. I hope the video tutorial serves you well.
The commands in Terminal are basically the same for each and every drive, regardless if it's an external or an internal one. The only difference is in the name of the hard drives. If your external HDD's name is this then the command should look like this: chflags nohidden /Volumes/Your\External\Hard\Drive/Users/ YourMacUserName /Library
Makes sure you enter your external HDD's name correctly and notice that when you enter it (without any spaces), the slash changes to forward slash between each word of the name. Every other part of the command uses backslashes.

Hope this was helpful. Best of luck!
SuperSoph_WD