Have my photos gone for good?

aliasojo

When our computer died, I took the hard drive out and was able to access the files by using it in a docking cradle, linked by usb to my laptop.

However, I've only just realised that the 'My Documents' folder is empty and all my word documents inside and photos in the 'My Pictures' folder inside it have gone, yet every other file is still there on the hard drive. If I click on the folder it says something about being inaccessible and wont open, if I right click and select properties, it shows as 0 bytes.

Why would only one folder have been affected and more to the point, have I lost my photos, end of?

Decado23

Hi,

It's impossible to say for certain but there's a good chance your files are entirely intact but the filesystem has become corrupt, preventing windows from accessing them (or even knowing what & where they are).

If this is the case then the files should be recoverable by doing a full scan of the drive - I'm sure there are tools available to do this (i think some linux live disk distro's are aimed at pc forensics) but if you aren't confident in your technical abilities you may want to seek professional assistance - whether the cost of such assistance is worth it to you is something only you can decide.

Reggie_Rebel

You are probably looking in the wrong place.

Connect to your laptop again and navigate to the PC hard Drive then choose (assuming you have XP)

DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS
the name you used to log on
MY DOCUMENTS


If I'm right then you'll find them all there

aliasojo

Thanks Decado, I do have a lot of stuff I would like to get back but I'm not sure I'd shell out hundreds (which is what I've seen other people being told it would cost) to do so, tbh.

I would happily look into trying to recover things myself if this was at all possible.

Does anyone know of a specific prog that I could look at?

aliasojo

Will try that now Reggie........




No, it's as it was.........the folder says.....E:\Documents and Settings\myname\My Documents is not accessible

Access Is Denied.

BillScarab

Recuva is by the same people as CCleaner and I've had success with it in the past. The main thing with any data revoery is not to write any new files to the drive. This shouldn't be a problem if youa re using it as an external drive.

Follow what Reggie suggest first though.

Decado23

BillScarab wrote: »

The main thing with any data recovery is not to write any new files to the drive.

Absolutely! good chance of overwriting the files you want to recover otherwise.

Also, it may be a good idea to use some imaging software to take a full copy of the drive in case of problems - make sure the imaging software examines the drive bit by bit though rather than just following the filesystem - otherwise it won't back up files the filesystem can't access. The bit by bit method is much (much MUCH) slower but the only way to be sure.

But yes, try Reggie's tip - didn't even occur to me to be honest

davetrousers

Search for .jpg files on the drive

Dennis99

Could this be an issue with file permissions? I'm a Linux user so am not up on the way Windows does this.

PZH

aliasojo wrote: »

Will try that now Reggie........

No, it's as it was.........the folder says.....E:\Documents and Settings\myname\My Documents is not accessible

Access Is Denied.

Are you using the same name to login to the laptop as you did on the machine with the failed hard drive Would this cause a conflict ?

Decado23

aliasojo wrote: »

Will try that now Reggie........




No, it's as it was.........the folder says.....E:\Documents and Settings\myname\My Documents is not accessible

Access Is Denied.

That could be a simple NTFS file permissions issue - the user account on your laptop does not have permission to access the files belonging to the user account on your PC.

If that's the case it's a fairly simple fix (you will need to be logged on with administrator level access) -

right click the parent folder, select properties then the 'security' tab.
a message should appear telling you you don't have permission to change the settings but you can take ownership, click ok.
Click the 'advanced' button.
Select the 'owner' tab.
select your user name inthe 'change owner to:' list
tick the 'replace owner on subcontainers and objects' box
Click ok
... wait a bit, depending on how many files are in there - if something pops up saying 'you don't have acces to this, that or the other, do you want to replace the permissions and give yourself full control' (NOT exact wording, can't remember that level of detail), say yes, yes to all or OK (again, can't remember specifically).


the above instructions should be good for Win XP pro, there may be slight diferences in other versions.