Recovering Data off a 120 GB Maxtor External HDD

[chewp]

Hi, I've been having trouble recovering the data from my old Maxtor 120 GB HDD. I was using it one day and suddenly it just gave me a message that the g:/ is not accessible. The file directory is corrupted or unreadable. Since then I've tried and tried using different recovery software to recover the lost files on that drive. I recovered the files I need, but when I open my other Seagate External's directory and explore the folder where I recovered them, the files show up as 0 bytes. In case it helps, the files are video files, .avi, .mov, .mp4 etc. Anyone want to help me out here?

[poehere]

You might have a partition problem and need to fix your partition table. But one thing is for sure do not do recovery on this drive. Make a clone of this drive and work from the clone you will do more and more damage to your drive using free software for recovery work off internet. Do yourself a favor clone your drive and invest ing some good software if you want back all your movies and music files other wise talk to a friend and copy his and start over again. Sorry you can take to someone to fix it for you but not sure you are willing to invest in the type of money it will take to get back these files for you

[chewp]

You might have a partition problem and need to fix your partition table. But one thing is for sure do not do recovery on this drive. Make a clone of this drive and work from the clone you will do more and more damage to your drive using free software for recovery work off internet. Do yourself a favor clone your drive and invest ing some good software if you want back all your movies and music files other wise talk to a friend and copy his and start over again. Sorry you can take to someone to fix it for you but not sure you are willing to invest in the type of money it will take to get back these files for you

Yeah Kind of figured it was my partition table. And don't worry I didn't recover the drive onto the "same drive". Nothing seems to be working though, so I'm still lost. The files STILL seem to show up as zero bytes, but in the actual recovery software they show up the exact size they're supposed to be ex. The Covenant movie shows up as 840 MB or however many bytes that is. But when I "recover it" on to the other drive, it shows up as zero. Confusing? yeah.

[poehere]

No not really. What recovery software are you using and you should not try and use this drive with the recovery software at all. Clone your drive and work with the clone. You will have better luck. Repair your partition table and then go from there

[littlendian]

How can you be sure it's a partition table problem? That's quite a big assumption you are making there. Do you know what file system your hard drive is formatted with? NTFS, FAT32?

I don't see how a partition problem would give you 0 size files...If what you have is a partition problem then any decent dr software can pretty much ignore the partition table and pick it up from the start of the volume (SB, BPB, etc).

What software are you using? 0 size files are more likely to be the result of some kind of file system corruption... anyway I would first try to make a clone of the hard drive, that could reveal whether you are having some kind of read/write problem on the hard drive.

[poehere]

Sorry guess I was taken wrong on this one. I only stated could be a partition problem that was all. No you are right there are many other reason why this is happening but he does need to clone the drive first before proceeding on with other recovery software then he can find out where his exact problem is.

[littlendian]

No worries, we're all just trying to help.. and you suggested he imaged the drive from the start anyway. No answer from the OP so I guess he's sorted it out .