External HDD recovery

I have a 3TB external drive I have been using in Windows 7 to store all my movies on. The other day I had to do a hard reset on the computer and when it came back up media center said it deleted 4 hundred some titles from my library and then I got a message saying I must format the drive before I can use it. I plugged it into my laptop using Vista and it shows the drive with all the folders but they all show empty. What would be my best way of recovering them and do I need to have another drive on hand before I can start the process? Thanks.

 

The first step would have been to stop using it after Windows told you that it deleted a bunch of stuff. Second, the best way, would be to purchase a file recovery program that will attempt to recover as much as it can, that has not been over written.

My guess is, you had a crash, which caused the USB interface to hic-up and cause Windows to change the MBR and File table on the external drive. What is the manufacturer & model# of the external drive?

 

I have not tried to write anything to the drive or change it in any way since the problem. All I did was plug it into the laptop. Will that change the drive? It is a Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex part number 9ZQ2P6-500 3TB.

 

See the Middle box http://www.seagate.com/services-software/data-recovery-services/consumers/

 

I strongly recommend the free recovery software from
http://www.lazesoft.com/download.html
This successfully recovered 6.25 GB Macrium partition image backup files that before partition damage probably had an average of 100 fragments,
and every fragment was found and assembled in the correct order and Macrium has validated them

Previously I used commercial recovery software and I think it found all the fragments but put them together in the wrong order
Macrium considers them so invalid it totally disowns them.

Free is always good to try - especially when it works better,

Regards
Alan

 

SORRY - BUT YOU ARE WRONG.

You posted a link to a renowned parasite site.
DOWNLOAD.CNET - GET MY NASTIES :strong

The person that posted that criticism on August 29, 2012 was using
Version: Lazesoft Data Recovery Home 3.2
Yet the software being reviewed was Version 3.3.0 and released October 21, 2012
(I know the dates and version numbers do not make sense - but what does on CNET)

The fact is that my link takes you direct to the developer site for version 3.3,
and the top item on the page is a 20.6 MB download that is marked as Free and actually :-
cost me nothing to install ( on 28 Feb 2013 ) ;
and cost nothing to recover nearly 500 GB from a 600 GB HDD that had
25 GB of RAW DATA plus from a partition
420 GB from what was a big partition that Windows now says is Unallocated Space.
I did not even have to register to activate.

Further down the page you will find several more varieties of FREE recovery software.

However, all varieties, including Lazesoft Recovery Suite 3.3 Home Edition,
are available for commercial use with greater capabilities and larger downloads at prices up to $199.29 for a Technician license (unlimited support of all P.C.'s by an I.T. department) in a 172 MB Download,
but you are plainly shown which downloads are free and which are not.
http://www.lazesoft.com/download.html

The only criticisms I have of the software are that :-
When 64 bit Windows 7 writes the recovered files to a different HDD it uses the current value for the date-stamps instead of the original values;
and it allocates letters to partitions that have none (I guess that is needed for Windows handles/hooks),
so after recovery you might wish to remove the letter from the 100 MB System Reserved Boot partition used by Windows 7.
Both these defects will be resolved in the next version due in 2 or 3 months time.

So far as I am concerned, having an inappropriate date-stamp on a vital Partition image backup file was a minor blemish which I easily resolved with a date-stamp "fiddler" from Nirsoft.

N.B
The 600 GB HDD was GPT type - but Windows went stupid and changed its Disk ID to exactly conflict with a 960 GB HDD that was MBR type,
and Windows lets my change its ID to a different MBR style number, but does NOT allow a change to a GPT style GUID.
I am impressed that Lazesoft Recovery works so well under such adverse circumstances.

Disaster details at
http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?p=1809124#post1809124

Regards
Alan

 

I agree... it really looks like an advertisement. most programs I have seen WILL allow for that amount of data to be recovered for free. I however have about 2.25 TB to recover and ALL of the "freeware" requires you to pay to recover that amount of data. I don't have a problem paying for the data recovery up to say..... 60-75 dollars. I really don't want to have to load all those movies again. I am just looking for the best program and if I have to have another drive or will the program fix my existing as is?

 

YOU ARE WRONG - SO VERY VERY WRONG.

Just because you have limited knowledge does NOT entitle you do assert that ALL freeware requires payment to recover 2.25 TB

I have already told you that this software recovered 25 GB + 420 GB.
That was in one session. I subsequently selected and recovered 300 GB in different "filter" modes to compare speed and performance.
I encountered no limitation.

I have knowledge of one "free to download" software that Recovers up to 1 GB for free and charges for a license to permit unlimited recovery.
No doubt there are other similar products that also have a size limit above which there is a cost.

Lazesoft documents no such restriction, and I have used it to recover over 700 times 1 GB - all without limitation.

 

Alan, this is just being taken too literal. Does it really matter what is what, and is it really necessary to get your panties into a bunch about software. That is my thing to do, when I disagree on something on a board, but once you get slapped a few times by the mods, you learn and move on.

 

I respect Plodr and fully accept her reason for looking at reviews rather than risking the link I gave.

I cannot understand how etech1 can assume I was lying in my second post.
I am astounded that he also chooses to disbelieve Plodr's final statement

I quit

 

alan12345 you are correct. I should have checked out the software myself before I made the comment. I did not mean to offend you. I still however need to know if I have to have another drive to transfer the files to or if I can repair the drive without transferring the files. I will check out the program but does anyone have more suggestions for other software? In my opinion it is always better to have too many options than not enough.

 

Regardless of what software you use for Recovery,
if Windows (or Linux) sees the file system as having zero content,
then every 1 MB that you recover has a 2.25 GB / 3 GB = 75% chance (or higher) of over-writing and destroying 1 MB of data that has not yet been recovered.

You really need a separate drive.

N.B.
In general you do NOT need a separate physical drive SO LONG AS you are recovering from one partition and have available a different partition on the same physical HDD - but that does not seem to be your current situation.

I wish you well with whatever you use.

Regards
Alan

 

Another option, free for one day only, now at
"You have 20 hours 13 minutes to download and install it. "

http://www.****************.com/2013/03/15/
Please note that although the automatic censor on this forum is convinced that the above site is giving away pornography, that is not the case.
You will get to the destination if you remove all the spaces in the second line of the code box below and then join the 3 lines into one and paste in your address bar.

Code:

http://www.
give away of the day
.com/2013/03/15/

Normal price list and options
http://www.munsoft.com/DataRecoverySuite/purchase/

I have no experience of this software because although I knew of it, the normal price of $99.95 was a total turn-off.

It has no WinPE bootable CD capability so is inferior to Lavasoft in recovering Windows System Files on an unbootable Computer.

It MAY have some use on external non-system drives.

Due to the auto-censor nonsense waste of my time
"You have 19 hours 46 minutes to download and install it. "

Regards
Alan