50 Gig File Disapeared from WD 160 Gig Slave

Man I had a file of music that just vanished, but seems not to have been erased because the partition still shows that the material is there. I dont know what happened. I have ran all standard antivirus protocalls as recomended by Major Geeks, ran everthing in safe mode, found some spyware, but nothing too major, I have adware, Spybot, and then I downloaded several of the smaller apps and ran them all.

I am running an Athlon 2200xp with 256mb ram with a M7VIT pro MOB. One WD 40 Gig system drive with an WD 160 gig ultra ata HD as a slave divided into 2 partions of 80 each, denoted F: and G:, it is the F drive that the file is gone , but when I boot I get a blue screen saying that G drive is NTFS, One disc needs to be checked for consistancy,
"Chkdisk is verfying files" after running through some checks it says "Windows has checked and found no problems".

I dont know what else to add, I would really like to recover the information on the lost file. or find out why it is still taking up all the room on that partition if it is gone.

 

When you go into my computer click on tools at the top of the screen and go to folder options. Click on the view tab. under hidden files and folders make sure show hidden files and folders is checked. Also make sure you rmove the check mark for the next 2 below this, hide file extensions for known file types and hide protected operating system files. After checking these open your F: drive and see what is there.

 

are you running Norton Antivirus by chance? I remember banging my head furiously trying to figure out why files i had deleted werent freeing up room when I used to have Norton.... turns out they were going to Norton's "protected" recycle bin storage.

just a thought...

and just to clarify, the disk size indicates the files are still there, but you cant find them, correct?

 

Yes I just un checked hidden folders, and have looked and showed a couple of hidden files, but the file was not there, and yes I do have norton, my updates are out, I can turn it off, I also have a problem when I delete anything there is nothing ever in my recycle bin. You know if this file is gone I would like to have the 50 gigs of space back. I had some badass u2 concerts in that file and some other groups, all in wav format. any more suggestions would be great. anyone know of some type of disc recovery software availble. Thanks guys

 

did you look in your Norton Protected files? this is likely the place they will be found. I have not used Norton in a while, but to my recollection if you right clck the recycle bin there is an option to veiw norton protected files

 

I cant find anythging in my norton that says protected files, but mine version is maybe 2or 3 years old, What would happen if I un-installed Norton, would I loose the file or would it come back. I have the drive empty now, and it show to have around 60 gigs in the hardrive, which would be this file I have mentioned. even when I defrag the drive is full, and it does not erase when I run Window washer which gets rid of all cookies and deleted files and such.

 

I think norton stores the protected files in a hidden system folder "C:\Recycler"

to my recollection there is a way to 'undelete' certain files, thought it may only be the last 25-30 files you deleted.

if you want your space back, there is an option to "delete norton protected files' on the recycle bin.

to prevent this from happening again, I would recommend turning off Norton Protected Recycle bin... but thats your call.

 

Thanks I did not find the recycler file in my c drive, I removed norton but left the files and settings in place, but this chunk is still there, I wonder if I could take it to someone to retrieve the files, and if that is real expensive. Thanks for all you help, I learn something everytime

 

well, i'd try taking out your h/d and putting it in a friends, and see if you can access the files/folder? anyway, just a thought. - sos

 

did you enable view of protected system files? i mentioned it was hidden, but i forgot to take into account that its not a 'normal' hidden file.

open any folder and go to Tools>Folder Options on the View tab, be sure that "show hidden files and folders" is selected, and also uncheck the box next to "Hide protected Operating System files"

then check for recycler

 

On my PC, the file is c:\recycled NOT recycler. Note the "d", not an "r". Do a search/find using recyc* to get all instances. You should find a folder in the C:\ Root directory. Let us know what you find. Bazza

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A friend of mine did a format on her drive by mistake. This program recovered the files. The best thing is you can scan you drive to find what is recoverable without paying, but you will have to pay to recover file. It is the best I have found. (I do not work for them) Stellar Phoenix addres is http://www.stellarinfo.com/

 

Yes I did catch what you meant, I un hid system files to check it out and found nothing, I dont have anyone close to put the hd in and check it, It has a ultra ide card so some slower or older computers will not acept the card, I did try it on an older hp and it would not take the card for some reason. Thanks

 

Ok Folks, I was running Norton, and removed it. I found some hidden files called Found.000 Etc. I opened one of them and vala, I found the 50 gigs or so of U2 and various other concerts in SHN format. I burned a few to cd, and then got the idea to create a new file called lossless 1 and the proceeded to drag the files from the hiden 'Found.000" File to the new Lossless file. Damn

I had found useable shn files, but when I moved the folders, it screwed them up, they are unacessable to me and show to be empty. I tried to put them back and I cannot. So the were found in working order in a hidden file, I moved them to an un-hiden file so I could acess the more easily and hide my files back and now they are lost again.

I check my hardrive again and they show to still be taking up space on my hardrive, so they are there somewhere, I should have left well enough alone. I thank you for you help and if anyone can get me out of this jam and reverse this snafu I will donate a body part to you if you need one.lol

Thanks again for helping me find them, sorry I was stupid enough to loose them again