Serious Matter: External Hard Drive Crash

External Hard Drive Crash - PLEASE HELP!

I was starting my computer today (that has Vista), and during the start up process, a black screen came up stating that there was an error opening up my external hard drive and it was checking for errors. After it finally booted up, I went to open the hard drive files, and it was totally BLANK! I then restarted the computer, and still the hard drive is EMPTY! I had ALL my important files in there!

The ONLY thing that looks promising is that when I go to Start then to Computer, it shows the hard drive there, and it still shows that 43GB are free of 111GB of storage (same info shows by right clicking on it and going to Properties). Why would it show this if nothing is on the hard drive anymore? Is there ANYWAY to recover these files again you think???? I NEED those files!!!! Remember that the hard drive STILL PHYSICALLY WORKS. It's just that I cannot access the files on my pc at the time for some reason. Please help. Thanks.

Update:
A friend gave me an idea, and that was to do a custom scan with my anti-virus to see if it would scan files in the external hard drive if they were still in there. Well, my Nortons scanned the hard drive and after several minutes, it scanned just over 10,000 files (that's an accurate count), which means that those files are still in there, right? The only thing is that when it gives you a preview of the files that are being scanned, the file names are not appearing like usual, and it's just numbering the files and the scan allocated them with its own naming/numbering system. So evidently the names of the files are not being detected, but the anti-virus did in fact detect all the files in the external hard drive.

It seems to me that maybe my computer itself is not reading/communicating with the hard drive anymore? I checked for updates on the driver for it, and it said that the driver was up to date. The bottom line is that those files are apparently still in there, but by conventional means of abstracting those files through my computer is not working. What should I do? Thanks for any help.

Update #2:

I called a computer tech and he told me to use the Vista utility tool to check and fix errors on the hard drive by going to Properties of the drive and then selecting the Tools tab. I ran the full error check, it said that there were errors that were identified and fixed, however it's still saying that the drive is empty. I KNOW that those files are in there. It's just that I cannot access them from my computer for some reason.

Also, I have a nephew who is VERY good at this stuff, and I talked to him just a few moments ago. He says that it seems to him that my "Partition Data" is corrupt, but my physical data is still there. Does this make any sense? Please help. Thanks.

Update #3:

Here's a screen shot of the properties of the external hard drive to prove that the files are still occupying their normal space (but when u explore into it, it says the drive is empty):

externalhdproperties1.jpg
 
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My Computer

Hello fullgrownnut,
I know this post is 5 days old, (just found it, trawling old posts), did you ever get this fixed ?.
If you still have the problem, have you looked at data recovery software to retrieve the lost data on the HDD ?, may be worth a shot,
Good luck and post your results, or if it's fixed, post the fix you used, thanks.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Self Build
    CPU
    QX9650 (black box) [email protected]
    Motherboard
    Asus P5Q Premium
    Memory
    8GB-4x2GB Corsair Dominator DDR 2-1066
    Graphics Card(s)
    2 x ASUS EAH 4870 X 2 (Quad)
    Sound Card
    Supreme FX 2
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Fujitsu Siemens 22inch flat screen
    Screen Resolution
    1680x1050
    Hard Drives
    150 Gig WD Raptor
    300 Gig Maxtor
    300 Gig Maxtor, (External)
    PSU
    CoolerMaster 1000
    Case
    CoolerMaster N-Vidia stacker 830
    Cooling
    Noctua NH-U12P x 1x120mm fan, 6x120mm case fans
    Keyboard
    Logitech G15
    Mouse
    Logitech G5
    Internet Speed
    20Mbps
    Other Info
    Audio FX Pro 5+1 gaming head set
I have recently had a couple of issues with the Western Digital MyBook external drives.
Ripping the case apart and slaving the actual hard drive to another computer revealed that the circuitry in the case was defective (and the hard drive was perfectly fine).
 

My Computer

Wait. Bootup with Knoppix first and see if files are visible. If so, back them up. Recuva is fine, but let's first verify these files have truly been deleted.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Custom
    CPU
    AMD AM2 6000+
    Motherboard
    Nvidia M2N-E SLI
    Graphics Card(s)
    GeForce 7600GT
    Screen Resolution
    1280x1024
    Hard Drives
    WD
    Case
    Cooler Master
    Cooling
    Three fans
    Keyboard
    Dell Quietkey
    Mouse
    Dell Optical
    Internet Speed
    10 MBPS

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dell
    CPU
    Q6600
    Memory
    4GB
    Monitor(s) Displays
    HP w2207h
    Hard Drives
    2x250GB HDDs
    1x60GB OCZ SSD
    6 external disks 60 to 640GBs
    Other Info
    Also 1xHP desktop, 1xHP laptop, 1xGateway laptop
I hate to necro an old post, but this is the closest I could find after searching...

My WTF? is I've lost some of the files off of a Iomega 1T external hard drive used exclusively as storage for ripped video. Yesterday it was up to around 850gb and today it looks like 3/4 of the contents of one folder out of four main root folders are gone, disappeared, no more, not trashed, don't show up anywhere after any kind of search except a few old shortcuts in recent/history on the media PC. Now it shows 650 gb in properties. Did check disc fix and nada, and it worked for hours on that puppy.

Here's the kicker, a new empty WD 2T is sitting next to it waiting to transfer and back-up....

Any new and improved suggestions? Thx
 
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My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    gateway DX4710-05
    CPU
    Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.4GHz 2.4GHz 2.4GHz 2.4GHz
    Memory
    6.00 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    intel
    Monitor(s) Displays
    32" Visio
    Screen Resolution
    1366 x 768
    Hard Drives
    WD 2T - Media
    WD 1T - back-up
    Iomega 1T - Media
    Internet Speed
    12-15 mps down 8-10 up
    Other Info
    SP2 crashed 64 so I installed 32 bit I had kicking around.

    Toshiba NB205 - my "phone"
    Gateway 820GM - The 6 year old media PC running XP to a 61" Panasonic
    Gateway notebook - The bedroom 50" LG plasma media provider.
    They're all networked.
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