Hi there,

I have a 500GB Maxtor Basics Desktop USB Device with 2 partitions, one in FAT32 and another in NTFS.
I use the FAT32 partition to connect it on the PS3 and watch Avi files and backup games.

Today I saw that whole folders have disappeared but I do see files with exactly the same name as the folder which are 64.0 KB (65,536 bytes) and don't have any extension. (See attached file)

The strange thing is that the available space hasn't been affected but if I use a program such as Treesize the used space is much less (See attached file 2)

I already tried to do the chkdsk command and it says it found lost chains but can't recover files because there is no free space (See attached file 3, sorry that it is in Spanish!)

What should I do? For some reason, this problem affects some folders and not all of them, would it be safe to remove the good folders and recover the chains(?) with chkdsk? Would that solve the issue? Or have I lost my data??

Any help would be very appreciated.
Thank you!!!

I believe chkdsk was the worst decision you could take on this one (err.. apart from defragmentation, that is..).

What do the Found.001 and Found.002 folders contain?

Try R-Studio. This program is free for evaluation. So, if it is able to recover your data, you can buy a license and go on with the recovery. I assume you know the basics of recovery (do NOT install, copy, paste, delete, cut etc anything on the patient drive. Recover data to another drive.)

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If CHKDSK was run probably only a signature based recovery will get your data back.

There is free software that you can run against the CHK files that can correctly determine the original file type based on its file signature. Unfortunately you will lose all information other than the raw data. File names and paths will be lost.

Hi thank you for your replies. It's very appreciated! I didn't know that about chkdsk! Next time I'll keep it in mind.

I've attached what the Found folders contain: Apparently they have a lot of CHK files... (?)

I also was able to recover my files with R-studio, they appeared in folders called "$LostFolder01XXX" (being XXX three numbers).... Any idea why they are called lostfolder? And also how this could have been caused and if it's safe to keep my files on this HD or whether it will happen again?

The issue of free space is still there, it does account for all these lostfolders which i can't see in the explorer but do occupy free space... Do I need to format again cuase I won't be able to back up the existing data anywhere (I'd need to get a new HD), or is there any other way around this issue?

Once again, thanks for all the replies, I look forwards to hearing from you.

R-Studio recovered your files in a different folder name because the original directory structure is corrupt. You should be very happy with this result and just recover your data safely to another disk and go on with your life (and give credits to R-TT for this excellent software).

If you feel some files are missing, then these are the .chk files you see in the "FOUND" folders.
There is a free software you can use to identify the file types and see if you find anything useful in there too.

PS. Your question about if you're going to use this drive again is a bit pointless IMHO. So, if we say go ahead and use it, will you do it? I wouldn't. A drive fails for some reason. That reason may be relevant - or not. It can happen again - or not. If i were in your shoes, i would just smile for the files i have recovered, I'd RMA this one (if under warranty) and i'd use a new drive anyway, to store important data.

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SandForce SSD Recovery
Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners

When you have in your result folder names that look like '$$$Root0077' it means that a specific folder has not been identified but other found data contains some reference to it so folder '$$$Root0077' is created and all referenced data placed inside it while maintaining as much of the structure as possible. For example if folder 'My Pictures' originally is beneath folder 'Documents' but the 'Documents' folder cannot be found a new parent folder is created in its place and named '$$$Root0077'.

Northwind is right, this is a good result.

Also, you open the CHK files in a hex editor and rename each file.

That is a lot of manual work when there is automated processes to do it for you. Also this is dependent on the op having the ability to identify file types based on their signatures. Also, some files do not have unique signatures.

Please don't get me wrong northwind. Of course I'm very happy to be able to recover the files I needed most. I've lost files before when my HD just went dead and wouldn't be identified at all and it is the worst computer related experience I had. I can't be more grateful for all your support and help which I very appreciate.

It is just that I think it's very odd that random folders have disappeared, others are still there and work fine and that windows does still account the size of the missing folders as if they still are there. And I was wondering if anyone else had experienced something like that before so I could learn from it, like how it happened? why? if it would happen again and so on, as everything else seems to be working completely on that HD and right now I can't put the files I recovered back on it due to a lack of free space as windows still takes into consideration all those folders that have disappeared.

So I still wonder if there is anyone who has experienced a similar situation and could share is wisdom to find a way around this issue without having to actually format the HD?

Once again thank you very much for all your support and I look forward to hearing from you!