RESTORING EXTERNAL USB HARD DISC.

[simon christo]

Hi there!!!
I was using a We**tern Dig*** USB HDD, and
just hovering of one of it's Directories, and it
lost it!!! Yep, the Directory disappeared!!
Maybe it was a de-bouncing problem - I
didn't press anything related to modifying
the directory at all.

Anyway, how to I bring the Directory back??
It, find's it - only when I use Search.No way, it will find it, any other way!!

How, do I restore it??

Tah, Simon.

[Halcyon]

Folders don't just magically vanish unless:
1. The user initiates some kind of action.
2. Software does something with it (anti-virus, malware etc...).
3. There is a fault with the disk and/or file system.

If it's an external NTFS drive, there should be a Recycle Bin folder on the disk (albeit hidden), it might be in there. If it's a flash drive, you're probably out of luck. At this stage if it really has been deleted, you'll need to use some data recovery software to attempt to get it back (like GetDataBack).

It may also simply be hidden, in which case, enable viewing hidden files/folders.

[Uunoctium]

You can try out "GetDataBack". If you can see your directory & data with the free test-version, it's necessary to buy the full version to save them. 79$
https://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm

[Halcyon]

You can try out "GetDataBack". If you can see your directory & data with the free test-version, it's necessary to buy the full version to save them. 79$
https://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm

There was a totally free "Lite" version which looks like it's discontinued now. It did NTFS and basic data recovery only, but might be a good start if you can still find a download of it.

[simon christo]

Thanks to all,
Yeah, its still there, but it will only accses it because i remembered the Directory name!! and found it using Search.
Tah, Simon.

[Uunoctium]

Still alive, yes.
Imho, i find that's a fair offer. Everyone can chek in advance with the free tool, if operating the full version will have success.

[Halcyon]

Still alive, yes.
Imho, i find that's a fair offer. Everyone can chek in advance with the free tool, if operating the full version will have success.

Yeah that's the full blown GDB "Trialware". There was a seperate version as well that was free, as in you could recover data and no licence was required. It was a very basic version however.

[shapirus]

For those who come here searching later, PhotoRec is an excellent FOSS tool that sometimes can recover data even when you deliberately tried to remove it -- even after filling all the free space on the FS with a dummy file.

[magic]

recover data even when you deliberately tried to remove it -- even after filling all the free space on the FS with a dummy file.

No way. It only works on files whose data blocks have not been overwritten.

[shapirus]

recover data even when you deliberately tried to remove it -- even after filling all the free space on the FS with a dummy file.

No way. It only works on files whose data blocks have not been overwritten.

Of course. But there is surprisingly much that can be found between the blocks being written into.

The only way to reasonably reliably wipe the removed data in that case was to shrink the file system to the smallest possible size (resize2fs -M), then shrink the partition, and then write random bytes to the region where the partition previously was.

Simply creating a big file inside the partition until running out of space was not enough. You can try and see it for yourself. And yes of course I double checked that the reserved blocks count was set to zero.