Files are gone, can anything be done?

[Omicroncubed]

So lately my outer hard drive has been acting a bit weird. It loaded some things a little slower than usual. I didn't really pay attention to this, but a few weeks ago I was playing Aika online (an MMORPG, I'll get to it later) and suddenly the game told me that "client data is corrupted, please reinstall". Ok, weird? :smallconfused: I started re-downloading it and decided to work on a few remixes that I've wanted to finish for a while now, but when I open Sony Vegas, it doesn't find a single file that I need. So I relocate them and it doesn't want do anything with them. At that point I was a bit scared and restarted my computer. After that, everything worked fine.

Problems started occurring but I didn't really pay attention to them. But less than a week back it started with the same bullcrap that every now and then it wants to mess with me and have nothing work. Simple restart usually did the trick. At this point I was getting a bit worried. I ran a few virus scans and found nothing. Then, yesterday, I try to get into Aika online to play for an hour or so, when it tells me that the preloader crashed... I try again, but it crashed. And again, same thing. I then restarted the computer and attempted to try again... emphasis on attempt, because I couldn't find a single working program, music file, video file, sony vegas file, my own RPG files, nothing at all! There were three folders that all happened to be named "ClientEN.100" and a bunch of files that couldn't be recognized with most of them including the word "Aika"... :smalleek:

I tried restarting the computer, unplugging and plugging my hard drive and nothing worked. This has happened to me once before, but a lot less files were lost and I knew how it was caused. This is entirely different: While I knew exactly how it happened then, this time I can't even guess how it happened, and let's not forget that last time I lost a bit over 2GB worth of music files or maybe a little less, I now lost more than 200GB worth of every possible file I've ever downloaded or installed. So right now I have no idea what I'm gonna do. And knowing that there is a certain group of people who expect me to finish something and the file is gone, that just makes it even worse for me because I don't know if I can ever even finish it. But before I ramble on about the things I've lost and such, I'll get to the point and the main reason why I turn to the playground.

It's been almost a day since this happened and it still doesn't work. I've heard of people recovering from things like these and I have to ask the computer geniuses of the playground: Is there anything I can do to restore most (if not all) of my files? I've had this hard drive for three years now and I'll be damned if that three years of file collecting ends in vain. Any help would be appreciated. :smallfrown:

[Jack Squat]

Try this (http://www.piriform.com/recuva). I don't know how well it'll work, but I suppose it's worth a shot. Just have another disk to move the files onto.

[Douglas]

Yes, something certainly can be done, the question is how much, how easily, and how cheaply. Worst case scenario, there are professionals out there who can recover data from drives that have been literally torn apart, or just about anything short of total data wipe with a strong magnet or deliberate overwriting. They use rather specialized and expensive equipment, though, and charge accordingly. Expect to pay upwards of $100 if you go that route, and some (probably small) portion of the files may prove unrecoverable anyway.

I'm afraid I can't offer any advice for do-it-yourself recovery attempts.

[factotum]

Are you absolutely sure this is a hard disc problem and not, say, faulty RAM? I would try this hard drive in another machine to be 100% sure it's faulty.

I would have to say, though, that having this happen before should have been your clue to start backing things up!

[Omicroncubed]

Try this (http://www.piriform.com/recuva). I don't know how well it'll work, but I suppose it's worth a shot. Just have another disk to move the files onto.

The programs doing what it does, about three more hours till phase 1/2 finishes.


Update, after the program finished "phase 1" (whatever it means by that, I have no idea), it said "not enough memory". Could be that I chose one of the major sections to search for, so I'll try it again tomorrow.


Are you absolutely sure this is a hard disc problem and not, say, faulty RAM? I would try this hard drive in another machine to be 100% sure it's faulty.

I would have to say, though, that having this happen before should have been your clue to start backing things up!

I'm quite sure. I tried it out on another computer and it still doesn't want to show me the files.

And the way this happened last time was that I took music from another games folder and copied it to my own music folder. After starting the game, it sort of messed up the folder with all the music and sfx I've ever downloaded. It happened a few more times, but for whatever reason, it didn't delete them permanently those other times, so I deleted the music I copied and it didn't happen anymore. But this time I took nothing from this games audio folder and copy it elsewhere (or anything else for that matter), which explains why I don't get it.

[IonDragon]

Put your hard drive in the refrigerator. Not even joking. Lower temperatures lead to higher success rates on recovering data. If that is impractical, I would recommend seeking the aid of a local professional IMMEDIATELY (not Geek Squad, or data recovery experts. Just some local computer specialist). Do not continue attempting to recover information from it. The more you use the drive the more you chance catastrophic failure until you know what is wrong with it. It is much easier to do something about this with a proper workstation set-up.

[Omicroncubed]

Try this (http://www.piriform.com/recuva). I don't know how well it'll work, but I suppose it's worth a shot. Just have another disk to move the files onto.

Well, I did this scan through and it did find some files, but not really the ones I desperately need back. Thanks, it was a good shot, but it didn't help much.


Put your hard drive in the refrigerator. Not even joking. Lower temperatures lead to higher success rates on recovering data.
Well I tried, nothing :smallfrown:


If that is impractical, I would recommend seeking the aid of a local professional IMMEDIATELY (not Geek Squad, or data recovery experts. Just some local computer specialist). Do not continue attempting to recover information from it. The more you use the drive the more you chance catastrophic failure until you know what is wrong with it. It is much easier to do something about this with a proper workstation set-up.

Yeah, I guess I should start looking for an expert now, but the professional we know is apparently on sick leave and has been for a while, so we don't really know who to call. Hopefully we'll find someone eventually.

[742]

so why dont we have a general tech support thread?

[IonDragon]

Because that would get confusing and this isn't a general tech support board.

[Jack Squat]

o why dont we have a general tech support thread?

We did (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=135059), but it'd just drift off the first page, or to the bottom half of the first page, and people would post their own threads instead of in there. Understandable, since it was made because people were posting quite a few threads asking for help, so those were still floating around.