Major File completely disppeared from new External HD butthe data still utilizing the drive.

[Grantchstr]

I purchased a new 2TB Seagate External HD...transferred 1.2 GB of data from my computer (Vista) and from a smaller Seagate HD (which has peformed 100%); shortly afterwards started to get "corrupted file" messages when accessing files on the new HD.

Windows "Properties" for the 2TB ExHD shows the usage on the new HD as 1.2 GB but only a only a small amout of data is available.

The major problem is that my largest file [ containing 1GB of sub-files ] doesnt appear at all now even in "corrupted and inaccessible" form.

Seagate offered a very expensive data recovery of up to $2400 but also recommended Recuva....so I did a deep Recuva scan and my missing file with sub-files does not even show up let alone be recoverable.

The 1GB file has to actually be there as it is shown as used capacity on the drive as Windows "Properties" for the 2TB ExHD is 1.2 GB.... but only 0.2 GB of small files is accessible.

..the issue is how to access the missing file.....

I guess I need advice as to how to use Recova for this purpose.

Thanks in anticipation.

[Augeas]

Try running with Scan for Non-Deleted Files checked (and Deep Scan unchecked). It may not solve your problem but it is a fairly quick thing to try.

[GoneToPlaid]

I purchased a new 2TB Seagate External HD...transferred 1.2 GB of data from my computer (Vista) and from a smaller Seagate HD (which has peformed 100%); shortly afterwards started to get "corrupted file" messages when accessing files on the new HD...

 

Hi Grantchstr,

 

Welcome to the forum. Recuva is a utility for recovering accidentally deleted files from media such as hard drives, but Recuva is not a disk recovery tool. The latter are tools for recovering as much data as possible from a failing hard drive. I assume that you transferred (rather than copying) the 1.2 GB of data from your old hard drive to the new external hard drive. If this is the case, then the data was deleted from the old hard drive, but that data can most likely be recovered by Recuva if the clusters have not been overwritten.

 

1. Your first step is to use Recuva to undelete or recover those files on your old hard drive since that drive is a known "good" hard drive. You should perform this step immediately in an effort to recover all or nearly all of the 1.2 GB of data which was deleted from the old hard drive.

 

2. After competeing step 1, your next step is to determine whether or not the new hard drive is a lemon or if it was damaged during shipment. Go to http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalDiskInfo/index-e.html and download the CrystalDiskInfo utility to your old hard drive. Then install this utility onto the old hard drive.

 

3. Once CrystalDiskInfo is installed, connect your new external drive and then launch the CrystalDiskInfo utility. The CDI utility may take a few to several seconds to start up. All of your attached hard drives are shown as buttons near the top of CDI's screen. Click on the button for your new external hard drive and see if CDI is reporting problems with the new hard drive. Then go to 3A or 3B below, depending on what CDI reports.

 

3A. If problems are reported by CDI, i.e., a Caution or worse health status is displayed, then we should ask the experts here for recommendations about how to proceed, and you should close the CDI utility and use the Safely Remove Hardware tool in the System Tray to dismount the new hard drive so that you can then disconnect it. Recuva may or not help if the drive is a lemon, but before hooking up the drive again you should wait until the experts here chime in with their thoughts about how you should proceed.

 

3B. If CDI reports that the new drive's health status is good, then at some point after transferring the files to the new hard drive did you simply unplug it rather than using the Safely Remove Hardware tool? If so, then this can cause data corruption and this may be the issue. In this case, Recuva should be able to recover the actual data files since in all probability only the FAT on the new hard drive got corrupted. But again, let's wait for the experts to chime in with their thoughts as to how you should proceed.

 

4. Wait for the experts to chime in before proceeding further!

 

Best regards,

 

--GTP

[GoneToPlaid]

Try running with Scan for Non-Deleted Files checked (and Deep Scan unchecked). It may not solve your problem but it is a fairly quick thing to try.

 

I think that the first thing he should do is to use Recuva to try to recover the files on his old hard drive, and then find out if the new hard drive is a lemon before proceeding any further.

[hazelnut]

CrystalDiskInfo installer is bundled with Open Candy ..just warning.

 

Also if you run Norton you may have difficulty running it unless your av is turned off.

 

GoneToPlaid you keep stressing, wait until experts chime in, and then post saying that the suggestion of Moderator Augeas should not be followed in your opinion?

[Alan_B]

QUESTION

Are you sure you transferred 1.2 GB of data ?

That would only half fill the smallest of the Flash Drives that I use, and would only populate 0.06% of a 2 TB HDD

or did you mean 1.2 TB

 

Google gave me "About 135,000 results (0.24 seconds)" when I pasted this in the search box

seagate bricked

The top result was a post dated 4/4/12 at 11:57am

 

A couple of years ago Seagate had errors in their firmware, and I had to help my son unbrick a Seagate HDD.

Perhaps they have a new generation of errors in their firmware,

in which case it seems immoral to charge $2400 to recover the files - but the shareholders might love it

[Alan_B]

CrystalDiskInfo installer is bundled with Open Candy ..just warning.

Open Candy is NOT bundled if you download the Portable version of CrystalDiskInfo.

If you want the "convenience" of the installer I believe Open Candy can be declined.