I have two external hard drives made by different manufacturers. At
random times, random folders on the external drives disappear. I am
always extra careful when it comes time to "safely eject" these
drives. I don't understand how I can ensure that this doesn't happen
again.
Here is the latest event. I copied files from my work pc (that runs
Windows XP) to the external hard drive. I also modified a number of
files (at work) on my external drive. When I connected the external
drive to my home pc (that runs Windows 2000 server), I couldn't see
the files I created at work. In fact, all of my modification
(renaming files, etc) that were done at work, were gone. I drove to
work, and copied the files onto the hard drive. I was Very careful
about ejecting the drive safely at both home and office. When I
arrived home, the files were not visible again.
Please tell me about the factors that could be causing (factors other
than a virus, and/or failure to safely eject hardware) the specific
event above, and not being able to see folders and files on the
external drives in general.
Thank you! |
Clarification of Question by
billbauer-ga
on
07 May 2006 02:07 PDT
I would like to also point out that I had created hundreds files and
folders at work, and I can see most of them at home. But for some
reason, I had a problem with today's files (twice!). Also, I have two
pcs at home (both running windows 2000 server), and I couldn't see the
files I created at work on Both home pcs.
|
Clarification of Question by
billbauer-ga
on
07 May 2006 02:20 PDT
Instead of shutting off my pcs at home, I make them "hybernate". I do
not shut off the external drives when my pcs hybernate, and I also
don't disconnect the drive from a hybernating pc. Can this habit be
causing my problems?
|
Clarification of Question by
billbauer-ga
on
07 May 2006 02:25 PDT
I already emailed the manufacturers, but they are not answering my emails.
|
Request for Question Clarification by
sublime1-ga
on
07 May 2006 15:17 PDT
bill...
Many external drives come formatted as FAT32. Most XP and 2000
installations are on NTFS formatted drives. Check the format of
your external drive. If it is FAT32, copy all the contents to
one of your systems for safekeeping, and reformat the drive as
NTFS. Copy your files back, and see if that resolves the files
disappearing issue.
Let me know where this takes you. If it solves your problem,
I'll post a formal answer...
sublime1-ga
|
Clarification of Question by
billbauer-ga
on
08 May 2006 03:28 PDT
No - my external hard drive manual said that it was formatted as Fat32
to allow Mac users to connect it to Mac. The manual suggested that I
reformat the drive to NTFS, and I have done that. I just double
checked - I went to My Computer, and right clicked that drive, and
clicked on Properties - it says NTFS...
I have a new development. It so happened, that my pc at work (on
which I could See the files), was restarted. Now I can't see the
files in question on the work pc as well. This means the files are
lost.
Thus, what happened was the following: I created a number of files on
my work pc. I have ejected my hard drive from the work pc, later I
came back reconnected my hard drive to my work pc and could see the
files. Then I ejected the drive and restarted my pc. After I
reconnected the drive to the pc, I discovered that I could no longer
see the files...
Please Help!
|
Request for Question Clarification by
sublime1-ga
on
08 May 2006 12:13 PDT
How mysterious! I found one instance of someone having trouble
moving a drive between XP and a MAC, and having files disappear
because of a setting in XP. See if this makes a difference:
while you're in Windows XP, check the properties of the folders
to make sure that the multimedia features are turned off.
Another user stopped having files disappear when he removed
the USB driver for the drive!
It may also have to do with having write-caching enabled for
the drive, which creates a delay in writing the files to the
disk. This MS article may shed some light on the situation:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/pnppwr/hotadd/XPrem-devs.mspx
I, for one, do not trust hibernation. Hibernation writes the
contents of RAM memory to a file on the hard drive, but does
not finalize the writing of data to drives, as shutting down
does.
You may want to run a trial of recovery software to see if
the files are visible to such programs. If they are, you
could then invest in the program to recover your files.
Restorer2000
http://www.bitmart.net/r2k.shtml
Recover My Files
http://www.recovermyfiles.com/
Let me know if this helps...
sublime1-ga
|
Clarification of Question by
billbauer-ga
on
09 May 2006 20:55 PDT
Oh, I should have posted this answer into "clarification" field,
instead of the "comments" field.
Hello, again
I am feeling bad about this. Whenever I paste any files onto this
drive, I never know if I will ever see them again. So it kind of
defeats the purpose of having this drive in the first place...
> while you're in Windows XP, check the properties of the folders
to make sure that the multimedia features are turned off.
Looks like this is not what is causing the problem...
> Another user stopped having files disappear when he removed
the USB driver for the drive!
Wouldn't that lead to one not being able to connect the drive to the
pc using a USB cord?
> It may also have to do with having write-caching enabled for
the drive, which creates a delay in writing the files to the
disk. This MS article may shed some light on the situation:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/pnppwr/hotadd/XPrem-devs.mspx
Ever since I lost some files in the past, I have been very careful
about ejecting the drive. So at least I can be certain that the
problem was not a result of a surprise removal.
> You may want to run a trial of recovery software to see if
the files are visible to such programs. If they are, you
could then invest in the program to recover your files.
My problem is not losing the files that I lost, it is mostly about not
being able to use this drive in the future without worrying about
losing files. However, if I the files could be recovered by the
recovery software, this too would stop being a problem (although I
would be forever bound to having to keep a record of folders that I
put onto the drive and then having to a check that they are all
there). I tried the software, but it didn't see the missing files.
:(
Thank you for considering this problem.
I am not sure what I should do now - it looks like it is not going to
be easy to solve.
|
Request for Question Clarification by
sublime1-ga
on
09 May 2006 22:16 PDT
I agree...it seems like a difficult issue.
>> Another user stopped having files disappear when he removed
the USB driver for the drive!
>Wouldn't that lead to one not being able to connect the drive to the
pc using a USB cord?
I took it to mean he removed the driver which came with the
drive, which left Windows using its own driver to access USB,
which, for him, resolved the issue of the files disappearing.
It's worth a shot...you can always re-install the driver.
sublime1-ga
|
