URGENT HELP!

[Drackeo]

I have no idea what just happened at all. For some reason all of my data on my storage drive was erased!!???? I dont know what happened TT>TT Is there anyway i can recover my game saves and other data??!!!! TT>TT

[Drackeo]

700GB of data poof

[arronleeds]

if it wasnt backed up then no sorry.

[dalomo]

Turn off your computer immediately and contact a data recovery service.

[AlwaysFSX]

Didja format it?

[Drackeo]

I never formatted it or anything. Its just vanished

[JerkyMcDilerino]

I never formatted it or anything. Its just vanished

Did you let someone use your PC? 

[Drackeo]

Did you let someone use your PC? 

 

Nope my personal PC only i can access it

[Badger906]

if you dont have a backup, and a back up of the backup thats all backed up... then its basically your fault.. you can't have data you dont want to lose on a single drive and then moan when its gone.. what do you expect!?

 

Hard drives dont last forever, things go wrong, and stuff gets lost... if you back up properly it should just be a minor inconvenience of reinstalling windows and readding the stuff that was backed up!

 

I have 3 copies of all my filed on drives in my pc, i have a sever that has everything backed up, i have multiple pen drives with my music and photos and then i have a couple of hard drives that are never powered on that have all the essentials that i back up every few months!

 

basically anything short of a nuclear disaster and I'm covered!

[JerkyMcDilerino]

Nope my personal PC only i can access it

If it format by itself then there could be 2 possible answers to your problem.

 

1) Hard drive could be failing.

 

2) Your PC probably got hijack by a pro hacker, then he got bored for somehow so just decided to format your hard drive for the lulz. 

[Drackeo]

if you dont have a backup, and a back up of the backup thats all backed up... then its basically your fault.. you can't have data you dont want to lose on a single drive and then moan when its gone.. what do you expect!?

 

Hard drives dont last forever, things go wrong, and stuff gets lost... if you back up properly it should just be a minor inconvenience of reinstalling windows and readding the stuff that was backed up!

 

I have 3 copies of all my filed on drives in my pc, i have a sever that has everything backed up, i have multiple pen drives with my music and photos and then i have a couple of hard drives that are never powered on that have all the essentials that i back up every few months!

 

basically anything short of a nuclear disaster and I'm covered!

 

The weird thing is this drive is less then 6mo old so this shouldnt happen

[Wombo]

Run a chdkdsk /r on it if it a windows formatted drive.

 

How to run Chkdsk at the command prompt

1. Click Start, and then click Run.
2. In the Open box, type cmd, and then press Enter. (needs to be run as an administrator)
3. Use one of the following procedures:
   • To run Chkdsk in read-only mode, at the command prompt, type chkdsk, and then press Enter.
   • To repair errors, locate bad sectors, and recover readable information, at the command prompt, type chkdsk volume:/r, and then press Enter.
   • Note If one or more of the files on the hard disk are open, you will receive the following message:
     Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be checked the next time the system restarts? (Y/N)

[Badger906]

The weird thing is this drive is less then 6mo old so this shouldnt happen

why? you could get a brand new hard drive get it out of the box plug it in, install windows and your stuff and it die within 5 minutes.. components dont have a usage life, they go wrong.. if your redundancy measure is the warranty of the hard drive then you're going to learn the hard way... A LOT!

 

age means nothing.. parts fail, learn that now and save yourself future loss.

[Drackeo]

The weird thing is that programs are still there on the drive, things like Steam and MSIAB are still there on the drive

[BobTheMailman]

[FizzyFantom]

-snip-

Thanks for this, I was about to suggest checking it out with Recuva, lots of strange knee-jerk reactions above...

 

Download it from Piriform and use it to scan the drive for all files to see if they have simply been removed from the index or partially erased.

 

Is the drive making any strange sounds like clicking or grinding? Check the SMART data with CrystalDiskMark or give the drive a once-over with a quick scan on HDTune.

 

If the drive is really mechanically failing you may need to send it off to professionals to get the data back, but check the above things first before you panic.

[Drackeo]

Thanks for this, I was about to suggest checking it out with Recuva, lots of strange knee-jerk reactions above...

 

Download it from Piriform and use it to scan the drive for all files to see if they have simply been removed from the index or partially erased.

 

Is the drive making any strange sounds like clicking or grinding? Check the SMART data with CrystalDiskMark or give the drive a once-over with a quick scan on HDTune.

 

If the drive is really mechanically failing you may need to send it off to professionals to get the data back, but check the above things first before you panic.

 

Im running Recuva right now. Your and @BobTheMailman gave me something that i can work with, everyone elses replays were kinda depressing. My drive didnt make any noises or anything. After Recova what do you sugggest doing?

[FizzyFantom]

Im running Recuva right now. Your and @BobTheMailman gave me something that i can work with, everyone elses replays were kinda depressing. My drive didnt make any noises or anything. After Recova what do you sugggest doing?

It depends what Recuva manges to find. I would probably check the HDD health even if it isn't making any noises, sometimes they can fail unexpectedly. Make sure to establish that your drive isn't mechanically dying before hammering it with recovery tools.

 

You could try PhotoRec on Windows for a deeper search and potential recovery.

Failing this you could then move on to TestDisk and even DDRescue, but I recommend you read up on these before using it on actual data.

 

If your drive is mechanically dying or none of the above work you may need to seek expert help. I would only do this if you are really desperate for the data since it can get quite expensive.

 

I know what you mean about other peoples responses here, they all seemed very strange and knee-jerk. I've been seeing a lot of odd (and sometimes bad) advice on the forum lately, be wary of what you trust (as always with the internet).

 

Best of luck with your data recovery

[Drackeo]

-snip-

 

How do i check the HDD Health? Is that something that would be covered by a Warranty? At least replace the drive  if it is failing? I bought it in March. WD Blue 1TB if that helps

[BobTheMailman]

[FizzyFantom]

How do i check the HDD Health? Is that something that would be covered by a Warranty? At least replace the drive  if it is failing? I bought it in March. WD Blue 1TB if that helps

You can check the SMART data with CrystalDiskInfo:

http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalDiskInfo/index-e.html

Direct link because their website is confusing:

http://crystalmark.info/redirect.php?product=CrystalDiskInfo

 

Check over the disk with an HDTune scan. A quick scan will show any serious issues and a full scan can take a really long time:

http://www.hdtune.com/

 

WD have a piece of software called WD Lifeguard, which can check SMART, run a quick scan or a full scan. If these come back failed then I'm fairly sure WD will honour your warranty and replace the drive:

http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=604&sid=3〈=en

 

Make sure your drive is healthy first

[Drackeo]

I looked at the drive in Windows Disk Management and its showing up healthy with no errors...?? Im trying the WD Lifeguard

[Drackeo]

-Snip-

So yah Recova worked. It detected everyone of my files that vanished from my drive. Im currently restoring it!! 

[Blake]

How do i check the HDD Health? Is that something that would be covered by a Warranty? At least replace the drive  if it is failing? I bought it in March. WD Blue 1TB if that helps

open power-shell window and type:

Get-WMIObject -Class Win32_DiskDrive -Property Staus,Model

Look for the drive (this will list all drives). If status is OK then your fine.

 

To recover the data look at running a check disk as mentioned already, do an offline scan and fix (requires reboot). I's also do a "sfc /scannow" command from a cmd/powershell window.