I dont know what happened to my external hard disk. when i plugged it to my pc. the partition is looking empty and it has been renamed to Local Disk. but i have over 166GB data in it and status says that 166GB is used then why it is not visible. I am very sure that the folders are not hidden and i have set show hidden files and folders.

after this incident new system folders have been created Folder.001 and Folder.002

I have attached the screenshots of the partition.


what happened to my 166GB data, how can i recover it. Please help.

The filesystem is damaged, and when chkdsk is run automatically by Windows, it is creating those "found.nnn" folder names and "filennn.chk" file names. There seem to have been multiple events, since I see dates of 16 June and 17 June. You have not included enough history to explain possible reasons why the filesystem is becoming damaged in the first place - some possible causes include incorrect use (e.g. power-off without clean shutdown etc.) or a hardware problem with the disk, enclosure, or power etc. Do not attempt to use that disk any more, until you have decided how you are going to recover the data.

Personally, since a hardware fault with the "problem" disk cannot be ruled out due to lack of info, and the disk could deteriorate at any time, then if I decided to attempt DIY recovery, I would clone that complete "problem" disk to another disk first, then attempt logical recovery from that clone. Other people on this forum have previously stated they believe doing that clone first is unnecessary, and would just start a logical recovery from that disk in its current state, since no hardware fault is being mentioned in your description. That approach might be OK, of course, if that disk does not have a hardware fault, and if nothing happens during logical recovery to cause further problems.

In either case, you need at least one other disk, with a minimum unused capacity of 166GB, to hold the results of any attempted logical recovery. If you are going to clone the "problem" disk first, then you also need a disk which is the same size as the total capacity of the "problem" disk, to contain the clone first.

There are many different logical recovery programs which could be used - searching this board for "logical recovery" would be a starting point, if you want suggestions - other members might also give you suggestions. However as with any DIY, there are risks that you'll either make a mistake (and make things worse), or the "problem" drive could deteriorate (and prevent you from being successful) etc. So you need to decide whether or not to attempt DIY - i.e. what risks are you willing to take?

If this sort of technical work is too complex for you, or if the data is very important, or if you are worried about making a mistake, then perhaps you should consider paying for local help from people or a company who have done this work before.

At some point, you also need to investigate what has been happening to cause that filesystem corruption, to make sure that the root cause is found & fixed, to prevent the same problem happening again.

those CHK files are due to SCANDISK, there was a utility to convert those CHK files to original files as before
but possible files/folders loose might happen but @ least will have some.

_________________
Kuwait Data Recovery - UNIX GTC
The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once. By: Albert Einstein

@einstein9:

Good point. There are indeed some utilities which attempt to identify known file types inside .chk files, and therefore attempt to rename them to (possibly) the correct filename extension - perhaps that is what you were describing? However since these .chk files are often just file fragments (e.g. cluster chains), there is no guarantee of usable files afterwards.

Also, look again at the first screenshot from the OP - you can see why IMHO the OP should not run any renaming utility which writes on the filesystem in that state.

i used power data recovery to recover all the data. it worked. thanks for the support.

According to your new thread here, you got some subsequent (expected) problems:

have-recovered-the-deleted-files-from-hard-disk-but-t19790.html

However you don't give enough details about exactly how you "recovered" the files, to allow any further discussion. You seem to consider this thread finished, but I still suggest that you note the last paragraph from my first comment in this thread.

I considered your advice, i first cloned my partition and used DIY patch but it didint seem to work correctly in windows 7. I wrote a bootable dvd using DIY patch and it was not appearing in bootup as they have shown in screenshots.

after searching in google i found this software power data recovery, this has a feature to recover from damaged partition. i chose my troublesome partition gave a full scan and viola my folders were all visible.

There condition was normal. the status didnt say that this file was lost before or deleted before. it shown normal condition and i recovered all of them to a different partition.

Again Thanks for your support.

about my new issue, consider it as a general question and please tell me, is there a tool which can scan my file and tell it damaged or not.

example if u open a damaged video there will be glitches here and there in sound or video. i consider this file as damaged. i cant open my 1000 songs and check for this glitches. so is there any software which can help me with it.

there is no such tool/utility that scans movies/songs and tells you its bad somewhere in the middle
never been there, and i do believe will never BE
and even if BEEE (heheh) that would be expensive man just think about it

good luck CHKING 1-1

_________________
Kuwait Data Recovery - UNIX GTC
The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once. By: Albert Einstein