I have seen corruption like this in drives that got misaligned and/or shifted.
You sure it had not been dropped?

This program I am using has found and is recovering the files on the external drive

I have absolutely no clue why it shows those files in windows.

After recovery is finished how would I go about putting the drive back into service?

This program I am using has found and is recovering the files on the external drive which I am very pleased about. After recovery is finished how would I go about putting the drive back into service? Format the storage partition in windows? Never really dealt with external drive problems.. especially when it has multiple partitions.. one storing the files for the lock/unlock and other manufacturer(western digital) related files..

My wifes files look like this on my computer when I view it over the network on her system, because all her files are named in Chinese characters. When I view them with my English computer, its cannot understand them.

Have you tried manually renaming one of the files and see if it opens?

I'm assuming that you are "recovering" files onto a different physical drive, and not onto the same "problem" drive.

Make sure you check the contents of each file that it claims to have recovered. In some recovery situations, file contents will be wrong / corrupted, even if the reported filename is OK. We have seen many reports of people who think they recovered their files, then they overwrite / re-use the original drive, and then later they find that they actually did not recover valid files - but have since overwritten the original drive. Game over. Beware of this possibility...

[Edited to add: While I've been typing, I see that lcoughey has made the very sensible suggestion that you (try to) clone your "problem drive", exactly to give you a "fall-back" plan, in case your "recovery" is not actually successful.]


Windows is interpreting corrupted, or incorrect data (e.g. not filesystem metadata), as if it was a directory. In that situation, you will see exactly the type of display which you provided. The problem is that on its own, this display does not explain the cause and hence does not explain what you need to do, to prevent this happening again.


Several approaches are possible - one approach is that at this stage "you don't" (put the original drive back into service). Until you have diagnosed what the original problem was (and its cause), why would you risk using the drive again?

As I said above, make sure you have definitely recovered all of the files that you need first (and that they are valid and usable). I would be further investigating the specific type of corruption first, which may help to identify what caused it. If you don't have the skills to do that, then at the very least, I would be doing both hardware testing, checking of SMART data, and limited use of the drive attached to one PC for non-essential storage for a while, in order to get confidence in that drive attached to a trusted PC first. More troubleshooting is needed to better diagnose what has happened, but would be difficult to talk you through doing remotely for several reasons.

As always, have a backup on different storage for any important files - then it doesn't matter whether this drive has a problem again, or not

Edited to add: Your response to laptokowiec seems odd. His (very sensible) suggestion to look at (and, if you are unsure, then provide here) that drive's (full) SMART data, is not affected by the fact that this is an external drive which you don't boot from. Therefore your reply doesn't seem to match his suggestion. Did you believe that SMART is only applicable to internal drives?

smartctl -l error sda

smartctl 6.1 2013-03-16 r3800 [i686-w64-mingw32-xp-sp3] (sf-6.1-1)
Copyright (C) 2002-13, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART Error Log Version: 1
ATA Error Count: 3
CR = Command Register [HEX]
FR = Features Register [HEX]
SC = Sector Count Register [HEX]
SN = Sector Number Register [HEX]
CL = Cylinder Low Register [HEX]
CH = Cylinder High Register [HEX]
DH = Device/Head Register [HEX]
DC = Device Command Register [HEX]
ER = Error register [HEX]
ST = Status register [HEX]
Powered_Up_Time is measured from power on, and printed as
DDd+hh:mm:SS.sss where DD=days, hh=hours, mm=minutes,
SS=sec, and sss=millisec. It "wraps" after 49.710 days.

Error 3 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 6467 hours (269 days + 11 hours)
When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle
.

After command completion occurred, registers were:
ER ST SC SN CL CH DH
-- -- -- -- -- -- --
84 51 01 ff 34 c5 e0 Error: ICRC, ABRT 1 sectors at LBA = 0x00c534ff = 129241
59

Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:
CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ---------------- --------------------
35 00 00 00 31 c5 e0 00 00:02:56.512 WRITE DMA EXT
35 00 00 00 2d c5 e0 00 00:02:56.007 WRITE DMA EXT
35 00 00 00 29 c5 e0 00 00:02:56.003 WRITE DMA EXT
35 00 00 00 25 c5 e0 00 00:02:55.998 WRITE DMA EXT
35 00 00 00 21 c5 e0 00 00:02:55.994 WRITE DMA EXT

Error 2 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 6124 hours (255 days + 4 hours)
When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle
.

After command completion occurred, registers were:
ER ST SC SN CL CH DH
-- -- -- -- -- -- --
40 51 01 c7 62 2e e2 Error: UNC 1 sectors at LBA = 0x022e62c7 = 36594375

Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:
CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ---------------- --------------------
25 00 08 c0 62 2e e0 00 02:16:24.853 READ DMA EXT
25 00 08 b8 62 2e e0 00 02:16:24.852 READ DMA EXT
25 00 08 b0 62 2e e0 00 02:16:24.845 READ DMA EXT
25 00 08 a8 62 2e e0 00 02:16:24.845 READ DMA EXT
25 00 08 a0 62 2e e0 00 02:16:24.845 READ DMA EXT

Error 1 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 6124 hours (255 days + 4 hours)
When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle
.

After command completion occurred, registers were:
ER ST SC SN CL CH DH
-- -- -- -- -- -- --
40 51 b9 c7 62 2e e2 Error: UNC 185 sectors at LBA = 0x022e62c7 = 36594375

Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:
CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ---------------- --------------------
25 00 00 80 62 2e e0 00 02:16:20.093 READ DMA EXT
25 00 00 80 61 2e e0 00 02:16:20.046 READ DMA EXT
25 00 00 80 60 2e e0 00 02:16:20.042 READ DMA EXT
25 00 00 80 5f 2e e0 00 02:16:20.031 READ DMA EXT
25 00 00 80 5e 2e e0 00 02:16:20.031 READ DMA EXT