How do I recover files from an external hard drive?

Question

Heh... I have an external hard drive, yeah? Well, all the files on it have disappeared, and aren't in the trash can. It came up with an error saying that 'G:/ drive can't be saved' or something like that... I can't think of anything that could possibly be wrong with it, all I had been doing was downloading iTunes into the folder... is there a way to recover the lost files?

Answer 1

i lost my entire hard drive trying to back up itunes music - the idea being if i've paid for em i dont want to lose em!

the heads on the hard drive broke and it just clicks now, constantly, but wont read anything...



i had it to various computer shops and specialists and nobody seems to be able to extract anything off it...



the only option i have left is to find somebody with police software - but i have illegal music downloads from back in the days before it was frowned upon... the days of kazaa, morpheus, limewire and even napster...



so im not really sure where i stand in terms of a telling off or prosecution if i were to retrieve these thousands of pounds worth of stolen tracks - so ive come to the decision its better off they just stay destroyed lol

Answer 2

What you describe is nearly impossible to do but it can be done. You can't really erase all drives with one click of the mouse so it took a lot of effort. You would have to really go to a lot of trouble to erase both drives. Be sure you haven't just failed to get the external drive to mount propely. Maybe your data is not relly erased? If you are sure the external drive is mounted properly and it is erased, contact a computer store and ask them what they would charge to use a data recovery program that might find deleted files. If the price is outrageous, buy an application yourself that will do it for this instance and even the next time your mouse goes crazy and clicks on too many erase options. These types of applications cost 50-200 dollars on a bootable CD (may not have to boot to it if you want to scan just the external drive). It may find all of your data or less than half. Even after a format, data could still be found so don't think too many good or bad thoughts yet. In the future, make 2 copies of all important data and 3 copies of all very important data. You should be able to buy another external drive for 50-100 bucks that can hold 2-30 Gb of data.

Answer 3

You need to download a data recovery program, here's a good one

http://www.asoftech.com/articles/External-Drive-Data-Recovery.html



helped me last time. hope that it helps you also.