Lost files on my HD... how to recover?!?! Help!

[gl600]

Ahhhhhhhh!!!!!!
The nightmare has just occurred...
I put most of my picture files on an external HD and I have been meaning to get a second one as a back up but I didn't get around to it yet (i know, stupid!).
Anyways, I just plugged in the 500gb hard drive which had about 100 gig of space left and now shows that it has about 200 gig free. I lost about 100 gig worth of photos. Has anyone successfully recovered photo files from their HD before? If so how and with what program?
Thanks!

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[SpeedTrap]

I have never heard of only losing part of a hard drive.
In all cases I know of if a drive goes bad you lose the Drive, not just 100 gig.
is there any chance this is user error? Did nomeone plug the drive in and delete the files by accedent?

[gl600]

There is no way that someone else could have tampered with the files. I was using my computer pretty much all day and I had the external HD plugged in the entire time, towards the end of the day I went to my photos on the HD and was missing a whole bunch of them???
It's almost as if the files were automatically dumped somehow.

[Rekd]

The data is most likely still there. Don't write anything more to the drive until this is resolved.

Mount the drive in linux to make sure it's not just MS shenanigans. If they're really gone, you'll prolly have to take it to a pro. It won't be cheap.

[flea77]

I will second that, if you REALLY value those images let a pro recover them. I can't tell you how many times I have had customers try to recover data themselves and they wind up destroying any chance there ever was to get it back.

Allan

[Plato]

Are they on your backup drive?

[Rekd]

Are they on your backup drive?

Doubtful.

... and I have been meaning to get a second one as a back up but I didn't get around to it yet (i know, stupid!)...

Left the last 3 words there for emphasis.

[gl600]

Sounds like it's going to a pro.
Thanks for the input.

[Dao]

There are some data recovery software out there you can try. Some of them offer free trial that allow you recover some small files. (Just to prove that the software can recover data), some other one will show all the files that can be recovered, once you pay the license, you can activate the software to recover the files.

Please understand that those good software will never write anything to the drive with missing files. So you need to have another drive (internal or external) to save the recovered files to. In other words, you need to have at least 100gig free space (not on the same drive you are planning to recover files from).

Personally, I use Ontrack EZ recovery Pro (paid software) and free tools like "findpart/findNTFS" (Findpart Partition Utilities). But the findpart and findNTFS require you to have some hard dirve knowledge.

Of course there are a lot of other one out there you can try.

Good Luck.

[SlimPaul]

Sounds like it's going to a pro.
Thanks for the input.

Are you using a Mac or PC?

[gl600]

PC

[Arfamo]

This sort of thing is unfortunately all too common.... it's always worth having a backup of the backup (and preferably physically stored somewhere else in case of total disaster).

Anyway, good news is that you can often recover deleted pictures successfully from a PC, camera memory card or USB Memory stick. Much depends on what has happened since you deleted the pictures.

When you delete pictures (or any files) the data itself isn’t deleted, just the index entry that tells the system where the data for those files is located. The area containing the deleted data is also now marked as free space so it is available for any new files to be written there instead.

If and when that happens, then it is too late to recover your deleted pictures so it is very, very important to not save any new files or data to the device concerned.
If the deleted pictures are on your PC, use another PC to browse the internet for a solution as internet browsing causes lots of temporary files to get written to the disk.

Download any photo recovery software, for example, to a memory stick, plug that in the computer with the deleted pictures and run it from there.

If the deleted pictures are on a camera memory card or USB memory stick, just don’t save any new files to it.

One of the easiest ways to see if you can recover deleted pictures is to try some photo recovery software.

A good tip is to try the free demo version of a commercial product that will scan the device for deleted pictures and show you exactly what pictures can be recovered. At least that will show you if you can recover the deleted pictures or if it’s too late already. You can find more useful information on how to recover deleted photos here



Good luck

[JackAlexander]

Well, it's possible to recover the lost photos from your portable hard drive. But note that just be possible as it depends on how long ago you find your photos lost, I am not sure whether they have been overwritten if you continued to save files on the hard drive. If you did and your previous lost photos are written then there is no way to get them back. But generally speaking, it won't be so easy to overwrite the data unless you put too many huge-size files in the disk. So it's possible to rescue your lost photos.

As far as I know the most effective way to get your lost photos back is relying on some photo recovery applications to recover your lost photos, as you may know. Thanks

[TJ K]

That sucks. I have pics on my computers HD and on an external. Soon i hope to buy another HD and keep it somewhere else in the case of a disaster, or in a fire proof, water proof, type safe. You can't ever be too careful. I hope that pro gets them back for you.

[KmH]

Considering it's been 8 months since the OP had the problem.........