Sounds like so many women I know

We will forgive you messing with EaseUS, just this once. You did well to sort out the UFSexplorer issues, it's been ages since I tried the linux version and it wasn't intuitive to use at all (powerful - but not at all user friendly), you could also have tried rStudio which has a more user friendly interface I think it's around the same price.

It's good to know you're slowly getting your data back and it looks like it was just an enclosure problem, best take note of Northwind, and when all has settled down sort out a good backup strategy, if not for everything at least for the really important stuff. Hard drives are cheap - data recovery is not.

_________________
Data Recovery Services in the UK.
https://www.usbrecovery.co.uk/

Glad you sorted everything out.

I think you went under a lot of stress for no reason. You could have asked for remote assistance, (I'd do it for free) and have everything settled in minutes.

Anyway, now you can pat yourself in the back and be proud

_________________
http://www.northwind.gr
SandForce SSD Recovery
Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners

Do you have a picture of the enclosure PCB. I have a feeling the enclosure might have had its own way of telling the HDD to store data as in a chip like WD does. If you got the enclosure working then mayby all this stress could have been resolved if it was just a loose socket on the PCB.

well I'm still slowly transfering everything, and now only 2 TB of space is available on the new disk
problem is - I've yet to save the folder that requires the most space, and if I remember it was at LEAST 4 tb.
it made me wonder how this could be possible.
maybe i'm just overestimating that folder's size (how do i check it through ufs explorer?)
but I noticed that there's a HUGE. discrepancy between "size" and "size on disk"

a random folder I clicked just now:
Size: 672 mb
Size on disk : 3.63 gb

random folder number 2
Size: 30.1 MB
size on disk: 128 MB

random folder number 3
Size: 1.30 GB
Size on disk: 4.48 GB

Disk management shows that this hard drive is the only one with a different "file system" than the others, displaying exFAT instead of NFTS

currently looking online for solutions but looks like this ain't over just yet!

thanks everyone for the responses
the enclosure problems could definitely be fixed in an easier way but too impatient and dont know how to do that stufff

last time I'll ever ask something! promise!

I have saved basically everything to my new hard drive
the folders that caused the problems were moved to a NFTS partition so they took less space
there's nothing more left to transfer from old drive to new hard drive


so now I would want to format the old hard drive, so that it's empty and I can at least use it as storage for lesser important things (obviously)

I open DISK MANAGEMENT
and I see the list of hard drives
but this drive DOES NOT have a name or letter.
The layout is "simple" and the type is "base type" or smth
file system: EMPTY (not NFTS)
capacity: 2048 GB (2048 gb available)

if i RIGHT CLICK the "drive" then EVERY OPTION. is greyed out. so I cannot format it that way

in the bottom section of disk management, same thing.
I see:

Disk 2
7452 GB
Online

2048 GB (GPT protected partition) and 5404 unallocated.
right clicking either of them - both options are greyed out

how do I format it?

Start> Run.... > cmd (run as admin) > diskpart
On Diskpart
>List Disks
>Select disk x (where x is the number of your 8TB drive, careful, DON'T MESS THIS UP)
>Clean


Done.
Now you can format it under disk management.
If you select the wrong drive on "Select disk" then you just opened a can of worms.

_________________
http://www.northwind.gr
SandForce SSD Recovery
Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners