Folder lost from external disk during copy - the gb are still there!

Hello everyone in Majorgeeks!

From time to time, when everything else goes wrong, we all come back to this unique forum to find answers.

So, my problem is that I lost all my photos (we are talking about 10 years of digital photography, approx. 40.000 pictures), although I consider myself a rather careful and organised person and this is how:

10 years ago, I started keeping my photos on drive C. Later on I bought a 250 GB WD My Passport external HDD, and started copying everything there, as a backup. Finally I bought a 2nd external HDD (1 TB WD My Passport), stopped saving on C drive, but started saving directly on the 250GB WD instead (under a folder named "My Pictures" obviously), and copying to the 1TB WD once a month, as a backup.

Recently I made some cleaning of useless photos and restructuring to the primary "My Pictures" folder (on the 250GB WD), so I didn't want to merge to the backup "My Pictures" folder on the 1TB WD) as it would keep the junk I had cleaned, so I deleted the latter, cleaned the Recycle bin (why???:cry) and started copying about 50 GB from the one external HDD to the other, under Windows Vista SP2. An hour later and before going to bed I had a look, only to see there was no progress. Probably the copy had crashed, so I cancelled it and decided to go subfolder by subfolder (year by year). First subfolder (30 pictures alltogether) took unusually long, so after it finished, I decided to reboot my system, just to reset the USBuses, and go faster.

And that was it. The primary "My Pictures" folder had disappeared from the 250GB WD. The 250GB WD disk itself is fully functional though, and all other folders are there. The total allocated space is 90 GB, and after adding everything else on this drive, it sums up to 40GB, so it seems my 50GB of photos are still (?) there. But I can't see it. I have "system" and "hidden" files on, I also went through command prompt, but I still can't see it. I even put it on another computer, but still can't see it.

I went through maybe 30 threads in this forum, but I didn't find a 100% compatible solution. I saw a number of software suggestions (Recuva, MagicRescue, Multitools, PuppyLinux, Partition Wizard, TestDisk, Partition Find & Mount, Re-enable 2), but before starting to shoot at random, I thought someone might have a more concrete idea. My guess is that it's a Windows flaw, and this is why I post it under Software Forum.

So, this is the story. I'd really appreciate any help. We are talking about a lifetime here, guys...

 

Do a chkdsk on the 250gb external. Computer>right click the associated drive letter choose Properties, under the Tools tab, hit the Check Now button and leave the first box ticked. Hit the Start button and say yes to any message about unmounting the drive for proper access. See if it finds any errors in the file system.

If that doesn't find an obvious answer then something like Puppy Linux might be a possibility. Or Recuva could do something but would probably be one file at a time so I would hold off on that. (I don't think partition related software is applicable to your problem as the partition seems healthy.)

But before going to Puppy give spacesniffer a try to see if you can determine where the ~50gb of space might be. It will only see what Windows can see but might help determine something about the used/unused space on the drive. Toggling the "star" button displays free space which might be useful to see if things add up.

 

I knew it was the right decision to ask for help in Majorgeeks first. Problem solved!!! CHKDSK run for a few minutes, came up with a long list of corrections and finished bringing everything back to normal. Completely automated procedure, not one click from start to finish.

It seems Windows messed up their file system during the copy crash, and couldn't see the directory tree anymore. The files were always there. I hope this will help other people who might find themselves in the same misfortune in the future.

God bless you sach2, I really appreciate your input.:wave