Hi, new to this forum.

Basically I have an external HDD (WD My Passport) formatted to exFAT so I can use between MAC OS and Windows.

I was using in MAC OS and disconnected without ejecting (sister knocked it off my lap) so it was no longer recognisable when reconnecting in MAC OS.

I switched to windows and reconnected, prompting a message saying there is a problem with the drive and windows will repair blah blah blah. I clicked repair and windows did a fantastic job of losing all of my data contained within a folder of six years work.

I am desperate to get this back - I used a tool (RECUVA) to get some of it back but there is stacks of work it didnt recover. I know that it is still there as the tool picked it up on the scan but would not recover the files. Any help would be really appreciated as i'm tearing my hair out.

Many thanks,
Jonny

Try DMDE. It is free and quite good. Also, can try R-Studio demo and see what it finds.
Though, likely the problem is not so much with the tools, it is with the data structure after the fix took place. Likely, the chkdsk command was used to "fix" the structure and that is exactly what it did not do.

I literally just wrote on this topic - how dangerous it is to issue this command on drives without backup.

By the way, did the drive sustain any physical shock at all? If yes, then that could be a problem as well.

Either way, it is recommended to create a clone of the drive to another drive directly or to an image file. If it sounds complicated, then read around on the forum and educate yourself a bit before proceeding.

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Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

I'll give the software a try now and do a bit more reading up. Wasnt really sure how the fix would have rewritten on the drive.

Thanks so much for the response. Really appreciate it!

I wrote a blog a year ago, last fall, about chkdsk as well - Is it safe to run chkdsk?

I second this advice as your first course of action, assuming that professional assistance is out of the question.

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Luke
Recovery Force Data Recovery

Oh man, so true. We always write, over and over, but it just does not deliver in the most needed circumstances. Whoever resolves the problem of matching a need/issue with the exact accurate solution will be perhaps the richest person in the history of riches. Well, at least fame rich. Well, until humanity will take it for granted, as we always do with every great advancement.

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Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

Hello ,
Clone the hdd sector by sector to another same capacity hdd or higher .Then analyse the cloned hdd with a software based data recovery tool and voila .If cloning is not possible stop doing anything give the hdd to a professional and get over it

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Regards
Amarbir S Dhillon , Chandigarh Data Recovery Labs [India]
Logical,Semi Physical And Physical Data Recovery
Website-> http://www.chandigarhdatarecovery.com