Help! external hard drive lost photos: Can anyone help me. I have just lost every photo for 2013 that was on an external hard drive. I tried to open the drive and it looks like I have...

Christine105 Loc: Brisbane, Australia

Can anyone help me. I have just lost every photo for 2013 that was on an external hard drive.

I tried to open the drive and it looks like I have accidently hit the delete button (don't remember doing that though) and deleted every photo from this year. I do not have another copy of any of them.

Can anyone suggest how I can retrieve these photos? They are not in my recycle bin.

Thanks Christine

BillHill Loc: Saint Augustine, Fl

If you have a PC run "scan disk and allow it to fix errors. Many times there is an error in the MBR or some other file that prevents anything from opening. Good Luck

Christine105 wrote:

Can anyone help me. I have just lost every photo for 2013 that was on an external hard drive.

I tried to open the drive and it looks like I have accidently hit the delete button (don't remember doing that though) and deleted every photo from this year. I do not have another copy of any of them.

Can anyone suggest how I can retrieve these photos? They are not in my recycle bin.

Thanks Christine

JR1 Loc: Tavistock, Devon, UK

They are still there they are NOT lost, calm down and breath.

DO NOTHING, scan NOTHING.

Download and run

Pandora recovery.

http://www.pandorarecovery.com/

"scanning" will fix errors and play with the sectors, do nothing, run Pandora recovery or PM me

I have been into IT for 40 years

QuickShooter101 Loc: East

JR1 wrote:

They are still there they are NOT lost, calm down and breath.

DO NOTHING, scan NOTHING.

Download and run

Pandora recovery.

http://www.pandorarecovery.com/

"scanning" will fix errors and play with the sectors, do nothing, run Pandora recovery or PM me

I have been into IT for 40 years

As a computer repairman as a side job. I agree - don't scan - there are many good recovery programs for deleted files if that is what happened . Some times just restarting a computer can make the items reappear caused by a glitch if they weren't deleted .

Capn_Dave

JR that is what I would do. This is the best advice your going to get. The important thing is do nothing to that drive. do not try to put any files on it. Do nothing.

Fair winds
Dave

JR1 Loc: Tavistock, Devon, UK

I grew up with computers as possibly the two posters above have, I used CP/M, DOS, built 286,386 and 486s, I am just building my, god knows what number now for my son.

However twenty years ago when all and their mother started buying computers everyone became an expert.

If a computer disk drive, internal/external (Originally called a Winchester hard drive, takes you back, they stared at 1Mb, and were partitioned) stops working.

1. STOP, leave it, get a cup of tea, relax and when calm then go back

2. Restart the computer

3. No luck turn pc off check cables to drive, if internal, turn pc OFF, turn mains OFF but leave plugged it to earth, then check cables.

4. For something as simple as this NEVER EVER run scandisk (which in fact is soooooooo old), or chkdisk in 7. It can screw with the MBR

Just use a good recovery program such as Pandora, I use Sandisk Rescu Pro but that is £40, worth every penny, but I also use Pandora

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk_drive

Worst case scenario, if all else fails, send it to me, no charge

ygelman Loc: new -- North of Poughkeepsie!

JR1 wrote:

. . .
http://www.pandorarecovery.com/
. . .

I just looked. Looks great for PCs, but is there anything like it for Macs??

By the way, the advice at the site implies you should download onto hard drive before anything goes wrong so that downloading does not cause any further overwrites.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Christine105 wrote:

Can anyone help me. I have just lost every photo for 2013 that was on an external hard drive.

I tried to open the drive and it looks like I have accidently hit the delete button (don't remember doing that though) and deleted every photo from this year. I do not have another copy of any of them.

Can anyone suggest how I can retrieve these photos? They are not in my recycle bin.

Thanks Christine

If you deleted them, wouldn't they be in your Recycle Bin? If so, you can highlight them and click on Restore.

cygone Loc: Boston

Good advice above but may I suggest a backup hard drive as well. I maintain all photos on WD 2tb portables and their backups on 2tb hd.
My hard drives are all removable in USB enclosures as well as a PC with front door removable HD's. But the enclosures work great alone. The keyword here is BACKUPS.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

cygone wrote:

My hard drives are all removable in USB enclosures as well as a PC with front door removable HD's.

I've never heard of a PC with front door removable HD's. What brand PC?

JR1 Loc: Tavistock, Devon, UK

jerryc41 wrote:

I've never heard of a PC with front door removable HD's. What brand PC?

Hot swappable, just building one for my son now, caddies take the hard drives, his case is the Coolermaster Storm Trooper

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/cooler-master-cm-storm-trooper-black-full-tower-gaming-case-with-usb-30-w-o-psu

Christine105 Loc: Brisbane, Australia

jerryc41 wrote:

If you deleted them, wouldn't they be in your Recycle Bin? If so, you can highlight them and click on Restore.

No, because they weren't on the hard drive in the computer, they were on an external hard disk that doesn't via the recycle bin.

All fixed now.

Christine105 Loc: Brisbane, Australia

cygone wrote:

Good advice above but may I suggest a backup hard drive as well. I maintain all photos on WD 2tb portables and their backups on 2tb hd.
My hard drives are all removable in USB enclosures as well as a PC with front door removable HD's. But the enclosures work great alone. The keyword here is BACKUPS.

Will be going out and buying another external hard drive so future photos are on two external hard drives. I don't keep photos on my internal hard drive. Have seen too many hard drive crashes.

sb Loc: Florida's East Coast

I have had a number of external hard drives crash. Hopefully soon they will come out with external hard drives that are solid-state drives. Meanwhile - never back up JUST to a hard drive. Always use a cloud back-up, or save files on discs that you keep physically elsewhere, like in your desk at work (in case your house burns down, your computer stuff gets stolen, etc.). I put a Blue-Ray disc burner in my current computer - a Blue-Ray disc will hold 25GB of data!

cthahn

Christine105 wrote:

Can anyone help me. I have just lost every photo for 2013 that was on an external hard drive.

I tried to open the drive and it looks like I have accidently hit the delete button (don't remember doing that though) and deleted every photo from this year. I do not have another copy of any of them.

Can anyone suggest how I can retrieve these photos? They are not in my recycle bin.

Thanks Christine

Take your drive to a local computer technician and have him him look at the drive. Have you ever herd the computer phrase, "back up" This was very hard lesson to learn, but you had better start learning more about your computer. No one knows what you did, but deleting everything on a hard drive is not that simple to do.