Files disappearing from external HDD?

[Vook]

So I go to check a folder on my External HDD this afternoon, and find that tons of files are missing from it. Whole folders, even. Looking at the dates of the files, it appears that it has erased everything from April 10th and on, except for one file, which is dated July 25th.

No idea what happened, I haven't touched my external HDD or unplugged it or anything, though this morning when I tried to download things in Chrome, it just wouldn't download. Save As... did nothing, alt+click did nothing. About two minutes later though, it finally caught up and I got like 5 "Save As..." windows popping up.

Only reason I bring this up is because often, when I try to download things, it'll get stuck until I hear my external HDD start buzzing (spinning I assume) softly again, then it'll work fine.

HOWEVER, I went to save a file into the folder, and it brought up a weird error in Chrome, on the little download bar. It just said "Download Error". I shrugged and downloaded it again, and it worked fine.

I unplugged it after getting back this afternoon, then plugged it back in again and Windows wanted me to run the checkdisk thing, so I did. It brought up a bunch of errors in the folder that got damaged, but I didn't really look at many of them. I ran it again, this time with the "attempt to recover bad sectors" thing, and it couldn't find any errors.

As far as I can tell, this one folder is the ONLY folder that was affected. It was the only one that brought up errors, and looking around in the HDD, no other files are missing. Why it chose to erase tons of files in this one specific folder is beyond me, because I haven't really touched it in a while.

Any ideas what went wrong? I'm not really sure why that file got "Download Error" when I tried to download it, or why this "Download Error" randomly decided to wipe out 3 months' worth of files.

[cp1]

It sounds like your hard drive is dying. The drive has an index of all the files on it. If that index is damaged, then it won't know the files are even there, and so they won't display in the folder listing. If you can check the SMART diagnostics on the drive you should do that. Copy all your files to another drive ASAP. If those lost files are really important you can use some linux utilities to try and rescue them (check out rescatux, for example).

[Masark]

download recuva and have it run a scan on the drive and see if it finds any of the missing files.

[Vook]

It sounds like your hard drive is dying. The drive has an index of all the files on it. If that index is damaged, then it won't know the files are even there, and so they won't display in the folder listing. If you can check the SMART diagnostics on the drive you should do that. Copy all your files to another drive ASAP. If those lost files are really important you can use some linux utilities to try and rescue them (check out rescatux, for example).

Well, the files that got erased aren't REALLY important, it's just annoying because now I have go to and re-download them.

Currently using the Western Digital diagnostics program to do a SMART check....says the SMART is fine, apparently. Going to try that "Recuva" now, though I don't think the files were deleted, I think they were just knocked out of the index like cp1 said.

Quick scan on Recuva didn't find anything. Trying a "deep scan" now.

Is there a version of "Rescatux" for Windows? This is an external HDD that I'm looking to repair, not my boot drive.

Tried plugging it into my MacBook, but that didn't work, Mac couldn't find the missing files either. (This worked for my mother's external HDD a while ago- lots of files got "deleted" from it, but I plugged it into my macbook and they were still there)

[lokii]

Looks like you got a bit of work ahead of you. A good free Windows program to use to recover files is GLARY Utilities. By the way was the drive at capacity when it failed or making strange noises? Also if the drive is responsive make sure and run CHKDSK.

[Vook]

Looks like you got a bit of work ahead of you. A good free Windows program to use to recover files is GLARY Utilities. By the way was the drive at capacity when it failed or making strange noises? Also if the drive is responsive make sure and run CHKDSK.

It's not close to capacity, still 48GB free of 150GB.

And it makes "weird noises" from time to time. Like, odd clicking sounds. But only for a minute or so, maybe once every couple of days.

I did run CHKDSK (at least, the one from the Properties menu in Windows) and it did find some errors the first time; scanned again and it didn't find anything. But I discovered the files were missing BEFORE I ran the disk checker.

It has been perfectly fine up until I tried to download that one file, and got an error. Before today, all the files were perfectly intact, nothing corrupted that I knew of, then I try to download a small file to the folder, "Download Error", and now tons of files are missing.

Scanning with "File Undelete" in GLARY tools now. Done searching, and it couldn't find anything from the folder.

---------- Post added 2012-08-22 at 06:51 PM ----------

Huh...when trying to copy the folder, it appears there's some weird-named file in the folder that won't copy:



Any insight on this? I can't see it in the folder, but when I try to copy the folder, it keeps bringing this up.

[lokii]

Seems symptomatic of the file system on the drive being thoroughly corrupted. What I would try is opening the command prompt and use the following code to try and copy the file.

xcopy e:\*.* /s/e/f c:\ Feel free to modify it. e:\*.* will be the source file you want to copy. C:\ is where you want to copy it to on your computer. /s/e/f is optional and copies permissions etc.

If still up the creek I would research ways to rebuild a drive directory.

[Vook]

Seems symptomatic of the file system on the drive being thoroughly corrupted. What I would try is opening the command prompt and use the following code to try and copy the file.

xcopy e:\*.* /s/e/f c:\ Feel free to modify it. e:\*.* will be the source file you want to copy. C:\ is where you want to copy it to on your computer. /s/e/f is optional and copies permissions etc.

Yeah, but like I said, I can't see the file in the folder. Yes, I have hidden files viewable in folder options. This file only seems to exist when trying to move or copy the folder. I can't seem to get at it using normal methods.

And I don't know how to type that file name, whatever it is.

As for rebuilding a directory:

http://www.ehow.com/how_6658195_rebu...directory.html

Would this work? I'd do it, but will it erase any files?

Another odd thing: I count 186 files currently within the directory. Properties window says 187, and Ad-Aware scan says it's 188 files.

[cp1]

It's just corrupted, don't worry that there's files named \|_/, just copy what you can.

[Vook]

It's just corrupted, don't worry that there's files named \|_/, just copy what you can.

I can copy everything that's left in the folder. Even removing them, Properties window still says there's 1 item in the folder, but when I go into the folder it's empty.

Is there some way to un-corrupt whatever this is? I'm kinda doubting that my HDD just deleted a bunch of files just because one of them screwed something up.