Lost everything on my external hard drive

JQ1986 · #1 12-20-2008, 10:16 AM

So I was listening to some music when all of a sudden my computer started acting funny, I would try to skip a song and it would just freeze. Then after I finally got it paused I tried playing a song then it said that the file couldn't be found. I went to check the drive and EVERYTHING was gone!

Is there anyway I can recover anything or am I completely screwed?

JT_bassman · #2 12-20-2008, 10:17 AM

ouch!!! Sorry dude. That sucks big time!!

Yvon · #3 12-20-2008, 10:17 AM

you didn't have any back up?

i_got_a_mohawk · #4 12-20-2008, 10:20 AM

Always try and make backups.

It could be the file structure went tits up. Something along those lines happened to me a few years back. A friend of mine gave me a program that allowed me to get everything back off the drive. Will have a look about and see if I can get the name of it.

JQ1986 · #5 12-20-2008, 10:20 AM

I have most of the music backed up on MP3 cds but my pix I didn't back up unless you count putting some up on Facebook and Myspace as backing them up.

L-A · #6 12-20-2008, 10:21 AM

Bring it to a comp. technician. Most of the time, they will boot it from a Unix machine made to recover lost NTFS files.

JQ1986 · #7 12-20-2008, 10:39 AM

There are a couple computer stores around the area, so I'll hit those up and see what I can find out. I just wanted to know if there was some free program I could find online or if I could do it myself and save me a few bucks.

ahahum · #8 12-20-2008, 11:35 AM

I recommend Mozy. It's very reasonably priced for unlimited backup. It will automatically back up your files. You just set it and forget it.

Good luck recovering. There are some good ideas above...especially some of the unix boot CDs to recover. Google the UBCD. There are tons of utilities on it that may help you.

Muusers · #9 12-20-2008, 11:46 AM

sounds like somebody lost all his best porn movies

hbarcat · #10 12-20-2008, 12:58 PM

Can you clarify what you mean by "I went to check the drive and EVERYTHING was gone!"? Do you mean that only some files/directories are gone or do you mean an entire drive or virtual drive are not showing up? If the latter, there may possibly be some relatively simple (and easy to fix) reasons for this. Does your computer still boot up and operate properly?

JQ1986 · #11 12-20-2008, 01:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Muusers

sounds like somebody lost all his best porn movies

Nah, my imagination works fine for me

**SoComSurfing** · #12 12-20-2008, 01:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JQ1986

Nah, my imagination works fine for me

Pfff... you're far too young to have an imagination. TV ruined that in young children years ago. Don't worry, someone here will have the computer prowess to gt your porn back.

JQ1986 · #13 12-20-2008, 01:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hbarcat

Can you clarify what you mean by "I went to check the drive and EVERYTHING was gone!"? Do you mean that only some files/directories are gone or do you mean an entire drive or virtual drive are not showing up? If the latter, there may possibly be some relatively simple (and easy to fix) reasons for this. Does your computer still boot up and operate properly?

All my music and picture files are gone. Everything else is there. I haven't tried rebooting and I'm a little afraid to cause I really don't feel like being on the phone with some guy from India (no offense to anyone on here who is from there) for 4hrs again. The last time I did that I polished off a 12 pack of Budweiser during the whole ordeal.

JQ1986 · #14 12-20-2008, 01:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SoComSurfing

Pfff... you're far too young to have an imagination. TV ruined that in young children years ago. Don't worry, someone here will have the computer prowess to gt your porn back.

Ok so MAAAAYBE I lost a couple vids. But I haven't watched them in a while (seriously). Oh I have quite the imagination, ask anyone I work with. If I don't make someone just walk away from the discussion shaking their heads I know I didn't try hard enough

.

JQ1986 · #15 12-20-2008, 02:10 PM

Well I rebooted my comp. and now the drive isn't showing up in My Computer. Anyone have any suggestions?

**SoComSurfing** · #16 12-20-2008, 02:18 PM

Have you tried a new USB or FW cable? Other than that, I'm going to be of no help. Good luck recovering your porn.

ahahum · #17 12-20-2008, 02:26 PM

Try a different USB port...

JQ1986 · #18 12-20-2008, 04:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ahahum

Try a different USB port...

Tried that, now it's saying that Windows doesn't recognize the device. UGH!

Chunk-O-Funk · #19 12-20-2008, 08:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JQ1986

Well I rebooted my comp. and now the drive isn't showing up in My Computer. Anyone have any suggestions?

I had that problem with one of my optical drives.

I had two optical drives. One day I booted my computer and it only show one. Tried a new cable, nothing. Got a new drive, nothing! It was the connection on the motherboard. Bought a cable with a master and slave on one cable and both drives showed up in My Computer.

If you can try the same HD on a different connection on the motherboard. If it still doesn't show up the HD is probably dead.

theshadow2001 · #20 12-20-2008, 10:30 PM

It happened to my sister recently as she was actually backing up her external drive. Anyway she looked into getting the data recovered and it's actually extremely expensive to recover lost data. At least here it is. Probably because if your actually willing to get a professional to do it, the data is extremely important and worth paying to have back as opposed to MP3's that your ripped from your CD collection.