[ilikejohn]

hi,
I have a Buffalo 1Tb external hard drive. A couple of nights ago I was downloading directly to it (through a laptop running Vista), I left the room for a while and when I returned I saw that I had somehow managed to knock out the power cord to the laptop. I had been away long enough that the laptop had run out of battery. When I reattached the power cord and opted for system resume I was unable to access the external hard-drive. I properly restarted the laptop but was still only able to view the top 5 folders in the hard-drive before it crashed. I repeatedly tried in vain to access the data and have tried on other computers. Sometimes the computer totally fails to recognise the hard-drive (though I can see it in device manager) and other times I am able to view the device as far as the top 5 folders.
I would like to recover the data on my hard-drive (mostly photos and documents). Is there a way for me to do this? Thanks in advance for any help,
John

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Can you access the documents on the first five folders? Are you saying there should be more?

[mgabriel]

Can you access the documents on the first five folders? Are you saying there should be more?

[ilikejohn]

The first five folders are 'music', 'photos', 'documents' etc. I have been able to see inside the video folder twice when I tried, though I wasn't able to actually play a video from inside (it crashed). So yes, there should be files inside each of those folders (totalling about 100Gb). I have been able to see just a few of them but unable to see the rest (it crashed when I try) and not able to actually access any.

[mgabriel]

Sounds like the download was corrupted . Can you format the external hard drive and redownload the stuff you tried to download the first time.

[ilikejohn]

I can reformat. The trouble is that most of the data has not been downloaded but rather is data I have been working on. For example, I have the photos saved on a disc but I have put a lot of hours' work into editing them etc. So if I am unable to retrieve the data then I would have to put in a lot of hours to get back to where I was

[mgabriel]

You can try a file recovery program. Here is a free program. http://downloads.pcw...ilerecovery.exe

[ilikejohn]

I just tried PC Inspector but I cannot find the drive even using that. I also tried putting the hard-drive inside the actual PC but on start up it wasn't recognised and then the computer restarted (repeatedly). So I don't think I will be able to use a file recovery programme as I can no longer even locate the drive (possibly because I am now on a PC with XP rather than my laptop with Vista?). I am about to try running Ununtu as I have heard it is more forgiving with unhealthy hard-drives. If that doesn't work then I think I am stuck. The last option that I can find is sending the hard drive in but it seems fairly expensive.

[mgabriel]

Sounds like the hard drive has bad sectors. Have you tried to see if the computer recognize the hard drive through disk managment? (Start, Settings, Contol Panel, Administrative tools, Disk Management) Have you tried to run disk error check? (You can do this through disk management)

[123Runner]

Vista and XP should see the drive the same way.

Try RECUVA. I have not used it, but its been recommended many times.

If that does not work...

Get Puppy Linux Download this file:
puppy-2.16-seamonkey-fulldrivers.iso
and burn it to cd
..
If you don't have a burning program that will burn .ISO files get burncdcc from my signature below ..a small FAST no frills iso burning program...

NOTE...do not put a blank cd in until burncdcc opens the tray for you
1. Start BurnCDCC
2. Browse to the ISO file you want to burn on cd/dvd ....in this case its puppy-2.16-seamonkey-fulldrivers.iso
3. Select the ISO file
4. click on Start

make sure in the bios the cd drive is the first boot device....

put the cd in the cd drive..boot your computer....puppy will boot and run totally in ram...if your hardware is in good working order you will know...
after you get it running and your at the desktop...you take the puppy linux cd out and then you can use the burner to copy all yor data to cd/dvds
you can also use it to backup your data to a external usb harddrive..You must have it hooked to the computer when you boot up with puppy.



http://www.puppylinu...php?q=downloads

Happyrocks Instructions:


Get Puppy Linux...Get puppy-2.16-seamonkey-fulldrivers.iso download it and burn it to cd
..
if you don't have a burning program that will burn .ISO files get Burncdcc from my signature...it is a small FAST no frills iso burning program...

NOTE...do not put a blank cd in until burncdcc opens the tray for you
1. Start BurnCDCC
2. Browse to the ISO file you want to burn on cd/dvd ....in this case its memtest86.iso
3. Select the ISO file
4. click on Start

make sure in the bios the cd drive is the first boot device....

put the cd in the cd drive..boot your computer....puppy will boot and run totally in ram...if your hardware is is good working order you will know...
after you get it running and your at the desktop...you take the puppy linux cd out and then you can use the burner to copy all your data to cd/dvds
you can also use it to backup your data to a external usb harddrive..just have it hooked to the computer when you boot up with puppy...

==========================
quick guide for saving data...music..files on a system that will not boot using puppy Linux..


after you get to puppy desktop..
click on the drives icon...looks like a flash drive...top row..it will list all the drives connected to

your computer...

click on the red icon for the drive you want to mount...in this case its a flash drive ...puppy will

mount the drive..the drive icon turns green when its mounted...
minimize the drives mounter window..you will need it again in a few minutes..
drag the right edge of it sideways to shrink it to its narrowest size...about half the width of the screen...then drag the window to the right edge of the screen...

now click on the icon that looks like a filing cabinet (kind of yellow) on the main drive...it should
already be green..
you will see a list of all the folders on the main drive Usually your C: drive..shrink that window to
the narrowest you can..about half the width of the screen...drag that window to the left side of the screen...
at this point you should have 2 windows open on your desktop..the flash drive on the right side..
go back to the folders on the C: drive...click on the documents and settings folder...then your user
name or all users..find the folders that has your data..
drag and drop the folder with the data you want to make copies of to the flash drive window...

your options are to move ..copy ect...JUST COPY..if its to big you will have to open the folder and
drag and drop individual files until the flash drive is full...(I have a 120 GB external USB drive for
big data recovery jobs and a 4 GB flash drive for the smaller jobs)..after you get the files copied to
the flash drive...
Click on the drives mounter you minimized earlier
UNMOUNT THE FLASH DRIVE by clicking on the green icon..you will once in awhile get error messages when
unmouting the drive..ignore them..when the flash drive icon turns red again its safe to remove the
flash drive..trot on over (stroll if you want to look cool) to another computer and plug in the flash

drive and copy all the data files ( I drag and drop) to the other computer..
make sure the other computer can read them...

now delete the data on the flash drive...take it back to the misbehaving computer and plug it in

again..click on the drives icon again and repeat until you have all your data transferred to the working
system..

Thanks to happyrock

[attachment=35970:Pmount_f...py_Linux.png]

123runner