[Common]

My desktop crashed a while ago and I got an enclosure to put my crashed harddrive into. Its a sata 3.5" hard drive. Ive manage to get the harddrive out and into the enclosure, then using the USB 2.0 cable I have it plugged into my laptop so i can try and recover the files from my crashed computer's harddrive. The problem is my crashed computer's harddrive is supposedly 200GB but when I try to explore the files on it, there is only two options. One, is my (E:) and that has 179GB of free space and the second is RECOVERY, which has 6.95GB of free space; that means there is 14GB of data or space unaccounted for. WHere could it be? I should also mention the big problem is I cant find my media files ive been desperately trying to find and save. Im sure I have more then 6GB of media so is it hidden away somewhere I cant see? I have no password on this HD either.

thanks in advance!

-common

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Hi Common
Here is a link to some recovery software http://www.snapfiles...tarecovery.HTML I suggest you try Recuva first as it has a good success rate, what is the brand and model of the HDD.
You say that your desktop recently crashed, can you be more specific as to what happened, it is possible that the HDD has become damaged and this may include bad sectors on the HDD and explain any missing storage space or data, use the appropriate diagnostic tool for testing your HDD which is available @ http://www.tacktech....ay.cfm?ttid=287 can you also post a screenshot of the Properties of the HDD please.

[phillpower2]

Hi Common
Here is a link to some recovery software http://www.snapfiles...tarecovery.HTML I suggest you try Recuva first as it has a good success rate, what is the brand and model of the HDD.
You say that your desktop recently crashed, can you be more specific as to what happened, it is possible that the HDD has become damaged and this may include bad sectors on the HDD and explain any missing storage space or data, use the appropriate diagnostic tool for testing your HDD which is available @ http://www.tacktech....ay.cfm?ttid=287 can you also post a screenshot of the Properties of the HDD please.

[Common]

Thank you for your reply Phill. I have a Western Digital WD2000 internal SATA harddrive. It is interesting that you bring up the possibility of the damaged HDD because there were multiple short power outages that happened before my entire desktop crashed. Im thinking it might have shorted some circuits in my HDD? This happened a few years ago and ive just got to restoring my files now. After the power outages I tried to start my computer but it would start the logo screen at the beginning of the startup and it would stall on the little blue/green loading bar then restart by itself. Ive tried to start it in safe mode but it would give me the blue screen saying UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME.

[phillpower2]

If you have the correct XP disk and the HDD concerned you could try a repair XP installation, see the guide of Admin http://www.geekstogo...air-windows-xp/
The power outages may have corrupt the OS hence it coming to an abrupt stop and then restarting, the system may be looking for information that is no longer there but all may not be lost if you are able to replace the missing boot files.

[Common]

My desktop has Windows Vista and it didnt come with any OS disc. All the recovery files or repair files are embedded into the safe mode start up.

[123Runner]

A 200gb drive will only show about 190gb available. Its the way the bytes are calculated.
My 200gb drive shows the following:
Used 169,178,865,664 bytes 157gb
Free 34,742,243,328 bytes 32.3gb
capacity 203,921,108,992 bytes 189gb

[phillpower2]

Thanks 123Runner
For future reference below is a table which shows the true amount of storage capacity on a particular size HDD;
(examples only and not a complete list)

Various Drive Sizes and their Binary and Decimal Capacities

Drive Size in GB Approximate Total Bytes Decimal Capacity
(bytes/1,000,000,000)
Approximate Binary Capacity (bytes/1,073,724,841)
10 GB 10,000,000,000 10 GB 9.31 GB
20 GB 20,000,000,000 20 GB 18.63 GB
30 GB 30,000,000,000 30 GB 27.94 GB
40 GB 40,000,000,000 40 GB 37.25 GB
60 GB 60,000,000,000 60 GB 55.88 GB
80 GB 80,000,000,000 80 GB 74.51 GB
100 GB 100,000,000,000 100 GB 93.13 GB
120 GB 120,000,000,000 120 GB 111.76 GB
160 GB 160,000,000,000 160 GB 149.01 GB
180 GB 180,000,000,000 180 GB 167.64 GB
200 GB 200,000,000,000 200 GB 186.26 GB
250 GB 250,000,000,000 250 GB 232.83 GB

Is this a brand name PC such as Dell or HP etc or a custom built system, different systems have different ways of accessing the Recovery Partition.
Have you managed to retrieve the missing media files?

[Common]

Hey guys sorry for the big bump but ive come back to fixing this problem!

My OS for the hard drive in the enclosure is actually Windows XP Media Center Edition, NOT Windows Vista. However my recovery disks are still in the actual computer itself. Im not sure how to explain this but when I bought the computer (an HP pre-built bought at Staples) the recovery methods are accessed via the menus when you turn on the computer, i believe it is called built in recovery console?

and it is important that you all read this:

I want to re-state my biggest issue that i am having so hopefully it might be clearer to yall,

I am trying to recover some files on my crashed computer. I took out the HDD and put it into an enclosure. Almost all my files that I want to retrieve are in folders on my DESKTOP. However when I plug in my enclosed HDD into my new computer via USB, I cant find any of my files! To get to my desktop folder which I hoped all my files would be were: HP_pavillion (L:)--> Documents and Settings--> All Users--> Desktop

My files should be in folders, for example all my music files are in a folder called MUSIC and that folder would be just on the desktop. But when i go to desktop its like there is nothing there at all!

Thank you all for reading.

Edited by Common, 08 January 2012 - 11:18 PM.

[Rusbel]

The all users folder is for files that are specified to exist on all user accounts. By default files install to the folder of the account you are logged into so it would be Common's Files. But also there are ways to move these folders around so you might have to look around. My suggestion is to just use the search function in windows to locate them.

[Common]

Thank you for your reply Phill. I have a Western Digital WD2000 internal SATA harddrive. It is interesting that you bring up the possibility of the damaged HDD because there were multiple short power outages that happened before my entire desktop crashed. Im thinking it might have shorted some circuits in my HDD? This happened a few years ago and ive just got to restoring my files now. After the power outages I tried to start my computer but it would start the logo screen at the beginning of the startup and it would stall on the little blue/green loading bar then restart by itself. Ive tried to start it in safe mode but it would give me the blue screen saying UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME.

thank you very much for your help everybody I have successfully used Recuva, which I highly recommend to find some potentially lost files, to recover some of my lost files. I have managed to find what I wanted, well the bulk of it. Im still trying to figure out where some of my files are. I recovered some songs but when I play them, the files are totally corrupt. Is this a sign that my old hard drive was previously damaged?

[phillpower2]

Im still trying to figure out where some of my files are.

Try Puppy Linux http://www.geekstogo...over-your-data/

I recovered some songs but when I play them, the files are totally corrupt. Is this a sign that my old hard drive was previously damaged?

Possibly, did you ever run the appropriate diagnostic tool for the drive http://www.tacktech....ay.cfm?ttid=287

[happyrock]

for the future remember this...
data you don't have at LEAST 2 copies of is data you don't really care about