Help! Hdd Data Has "disappeared"

[bonsaimax]

I took out my 500GB SATA2 HDD out of the PC to put into the new HDD enclosure I have just bought. Tried several times connecting the new HDD enclosure with my HDD in it, but the drive would not appear. Checked with "Disk Management" in "Administrative Tools" and it said that the drive has "failed". So I tried "refreshing" the drive careful NOT to reformat it.

Eventually, I gave up and just took it out of the enclosure to install back into the PC. But after installing it back into the PC, it shows that the drive is empty and all my photos and videos are gone. It says the disk is "Not Formatted", and is asking whether I would like to format it. I don't understand how all the data has disappeared when the HDD has not been reformatted. The HDD name has also changed to "Local Disk" which is typical of unused or newly installed drives. There is nothing wrong with the HDD now. It's just all the data has gone missing.

What options do I have now? I know that data recovery can be expensive. Ironically, I was actually in the process of backing it up knowing how much data has already accumulated over the years, hence the purchase of the external enclosure. I know 500 GB is a lot to recover, but those files are irreplaceable.

Truly a very sad day for me. I feel like I've been robbed. Any help appreciated. Thanks all in advance!

Edited June 29, 2008 by bonsaimax

[Guest Reimar]

I took out my 500GB SATA2 HDD out of the PC to put into the new HDD enclosure I have just bought. Tried several times connecting the new HDD enclosure with my HDD in it, but the drive would not appear. Checked with "Disk Management" in "Administrative Tools" and it said that the drive has "failed". So I tried "refreshing" the drive careful NOT to reformat it.

Eventually, I gave up and just took it out of the enclosure to install back into the PC. But after installing it back into the PC, it shows that the drive is empty and all my photos and videos are gone. It says the disk is "Not Formatted", and is asking whether I would like to format it. I don't understand how all the data has disappeared when the HDD has not been reformatted. The HDD name has also changed to "Local Disk" which is typical of unused or newly installed drives. There is nothing wrong with the HDD now. It's just all the data has gone missing.

What options do I have now? I know that data recovery can be expensive. Ironically, I was actually in the process of backing it up knowing how much data has already accumulated over the years, hence the purchase of the external enclosure. I know 500 GB is a lot to recover, but those files are irreplaceable.

Truly a very sad day for me. I feel like I've been robbed. Any help appreciated. Thanks all in advance!

You may go to an IT Mall with Software Shops and ask for an CD named Emergency CD 2006 V4. On this CD is some software for to recover "lost" HDD partitions.

Cheers.

[A_Traveller]

This thread offers further advice about partition recovery and some software which can be downloaded to assist, as well as a forum for HDD problems, where posting might furnish you with more detailed advice.

Regards

[bonsaimax]

REimar, A_Traveller, thanks a lot. I really hope I am able to recover the data. I am quite positive that the data is still there. I did not do anything drastic. There must just be a file on the disk which fools the computer to believe that it is empty when it actually isn't.

[A_Traveller]

At this stage I'd agree the data is still there. My guess is that the SATA switching has become confused, I wondered is it a boot disk in the normal set-up or just a 'slave' data disk?

If it has lost it's partition ID, or it is not being read then it is the partition itself which is most likely at fault, or more accurately it is not reporting what the OS is expecting to see.

Regards

PS Under no circumstances try to write to the disk.

[SebD]

You could try putting another Drive in as master and accessing your existing drive as a slave.

If it sees the data, copy what you want to the master or DVD's and at least you've got your data back, even if the drive's goosed as an actual drive.

[JetsetBkk]

This thread offers further advice about partition recovery and some software which can be downloaded to assist, as well as a forum for HDD problems, where posting might furnish you with more detailed advice.

Regards

As A_Traveller says, go to the link he provided and check out this forum: "Have You Lost A Hard Drive or Partition". If you post your problem there, you'll get excellent help.

Don't worry too much - I'm sure the data is still there, you just need the right tools (e.g. Partition Find And Mount and TestDisk - both free) to get to it and copy it to another drive. I know exactly how you feel because it happened to me recently, and "PartitionFindAndMount" did its job so I could copy the files to another drive, and TestDisk enabled me to fix the bad drive so I could re-partition it. See the thread A_Trav posted.

As A_Traveller says, don't write anything to the disk or re-format it, and do things slowly - take your time and be sure you know which hard drive/partition you are working on.

[bonsaimax]

Finally recovered the "lost" data, except for my encrypted data which was secured using Free Hide Folder. This is what I would have to work on next.

It was is an unpartitioned 500GB "slave" drive which was 96% full. Now another question if I may, would I have to buy a new HD to copy the files on to before I could "restore / reformat" my mounted drive? Stupid question , I know! Or is it possible to "convert" this mounted drive into a "true" drive now that it is visible.

Anyway, THANKS again, Jetset, A_Traveller & Reimar for all you help !!! I owe you bigtime! Words can't described how grateful and relieved I am.

Cheers!!!!!!!!

[Rice_King]

Finally recovered the "lost" data, except for my encrypted data which was secured using Free Hide Folder. This is what I would have to work on next.

Could you please tell us how you did it? Was it by one of the methods mentioned by the people who posted to you? There are many people that read this thread, and will read it on future searches, that (will) have a need to know or are just curious as to HOW you were able to recover the data.

Thanks!

Edited June 30, 2008 by Rice_King

[nikster]

I don't know if I had just almost lost all my data, the first thing I would do is back it all up - you should have done that before the failure actually. So - back up! Hard disks are cheap

[bonsaimax]

I don't know if I had just almost lost all my data, the first thing I would do is back it all up - you should have done that before the failure actually. So - back up! Hard disks are cheap

Yes, I do back up all my data. But I have almost 2 TB worth, and honestly, after a while, I lose track of which data I have already backed up. My PC can only take 4 internal SATA HDs. Aside from that, already have 2 external HDs; plus one more soon if I have to transfer all this data from my mounted drive.

Could you please tell us how you did it? Was it by one of the methods mentioned by the people who posted to you? There are many people that read this thread, and will read it on future searches, that (will) have a need to know or are just curious as to HOW you were able to recover the data.

I just clicked on the links A_traveller and JetsetBkk provided. I downloaded "Find and Mount:, and did a "normal" scan, but had negative results. I then did a "full scan", and luckily it found the missing data. TestDisk 6.9 also yielded negative results for me.

My dilemma is my ever increasing amount of data to back up. It seems that I would be needing twice the space for every byte of data I save.

[Rice_King]

My dilemma is my ever increasing amount of data to back up. It seems that I would be needing twice the space for every byte of data I save.

These were my thoughts EXACTLY. Seems every 18 months I was buying a bigger hard drive to do backups with. Hence my post advocating an online backup solution on another thread.

The Alternatives:

• Burn a new CD or DVD every Sunday night and store it at your brother-in-law's place.
  
• Buy $150 external hard drive(s) and hope your home / office doesn't burn down.
  
• Do nothing and don't worry about backup.
  
• Run a cron job of rsync, gzip and mcrypt piped over ssh to your friend's server over his DSL line.
  

[A_Traveller]

Glad you got your data back. The back-up conundrum is one which is becoming increasingly problematic, DVD's don't seem to have a long life span outside AC, hard disks become ever larger, and so more complex to recover from {or at least more resource consuming} [and potentially even more catastrophic when they fail] and here in Thailand, the network constraints on using 'web' based techniques have to be factored in.

Thanks for the update, sure others will find the links helpful going forward.

Regards

[JetsetBkk]

... I downloaded "Find and Mount:, and did a "normal" scan, but had negative results. I then did a "full scan", and luckily it found the missing data. TestDisk 6.9 also yielded negative results for me.

My dilemma is my ever increasing amount of data to back up. It seems that I would be needing twice the space for every byte of data I save.

Great news - well done! The reason I have two 500 GB hard drives (one normally switched off) is because the second one is a backup and I regularly (weekly) synchronise the normal drive with the backup. (Just did it tonight, in fact).

Regards what to do with your newly discovered files, what I did was to copy them to my backup drive first, before I did anything to the faulty drive other than running "FindAndMount" on it. My "backup" drive then became my "normal" drive and vice versa. Only then did I try to delete all the partitions on the faulty drive and reformat it. That's where "TestDisk" helped, as Windows was unable to delete the faulty partition. So I used TestDisk to zero the partition table for that drive - that gave me all "unallocated space" as far as Windows Disk Manager was concerned.

So I would strongly suggest you buy another identical drive and copying everything from the dodgy drive onto it. Then you can play with the dodgy drive without any worries. But always remember which drive/partition you are working on - it can get confusing when both hard drives look identical to Windows, except for the volume name.

It took me several days to do all this copying, checking and re-partitioning, but it was worth it.

[bonsaimax]

Would you suggest I copy the files manually over to the new HD, or "create an image" of it considering that I still have some 700 MB (mostly personal documents) of encrypted data which I have yet to recover. Would creating an image of the drive mean that the image would be created on the new HD, and then rewrtitten back to the old HD? I plan to just do it manually and reassign the previous drive's letter (drive F: I think) to it, and hopefully be able to unencrypt it.

I have done it before using the "Recycler" folder (not the recycle bin). But I can't seem to locate it now. I have enabled "hidden" folders to be shown, and from time to time, it shows the "Recycler" folder. Is there a way of permanently "showing" the folder?

Cheers!

[A_Traveller]

To show Recycler, you need to go to My Computer <double click> Tools -> Folder Options -> View, then un-check Hide protected operating system files (Recommended). Note this will expose a number of critical elements not just recycler so it is best toggled as required.

Regards

[bonsaimax]

Just another observation. I noticed that copying a mere 25 MB file form the mounted drive to another physical drive takes 4 minutes. At this rate, it would take at least a couple of weeks of continuous copying to duplicate 500 GB of data...............but at least, the data has been recovered!

[Tywais]

Just another observation. I noticed that copying a mere 25 MB file form the mounted drive to another physical drive takes 4 minutes.

I use a program called FastCopy when I transfer large files or large number of files and find it improves the transfer considerably over XP drag and drop method. Also shows the transfer rates so you can have an idea of any bottle necks in the process. Oh, and it's free.

[bonsaimax]

Thanks Tywais. Also, would you have any idea on how I could recover some data which I have on the defective HD encrypted using the program, Free Hide Folder (cleanersoft)?

Cheers!

[bonsaimax]

Tried FastCopy v. 1.71. Tested it with a 270 MB file -- 7 minutes. Probably because the source is a "mounted" drive. Thanks again, Tywais!

[JetsetBkk]

Would you suggest I copy the files manually over to the new HD, or "create an image" of it considering that I still have some 700 MB (mostly personal documents) of encrypted data which I have yet to recover. Would creating an image of the drive mean that the image would be created on the new HD, and then rewrtitten back to the old HD? I plan to just do it manually and reassign the previous drive's letter (drive F: I think) to it, and hopefully be able to unencrypt it.

I have done it before using the "Recycler" folder (not the recycle bin). But I can't seem to locate it now. I have enabled "hidden" folders to be shown, and from time to time, it shows the "Recycler" folder. Is there a way of permanently "showing" the folder?

Cheers!

I would do it as "manually" as possible so that I have total control over what was happening. I presume you are copying from the partition mounted by "FindAndMount", so Windows may have problems if you try to create an image of it.

I have never used the "Recycler" folder so can't give advice.

[bonsaimax]

I have just used NTFSundelete, and it has recovered all the encrypted data that I've had missing. I also did a test "recovery" and it was actually faster than copying it manually from the mounted drive. I will definitely follow your advice JetsetBkk, and copy the files manually. Now that all files are visible, it is just a question of how much time I have to invest in recovering all the data.

Case closed........I hope. Add me to the list of the "fortunate" ones forever indebted to TV.

Cheers all !!!!!!!!!!!

[JetsetBkk]

... Now that all files are visible, it is just a question of how much time I have to invest in recovering all the data...

That's the main issue - like you, I hate to lose anything. Great to hear it's all back.

[klikster]

Good info here. Might be a good idea to pin this topic?