Aaaargh - HDD problem!

Amba_Gambla

I'm pretty good at backing stuff up, especially work stuff, but my portable HDD has had a hissy fit today and I seem to have lost about 5 weeks worth of work...

Most things seem untouched except the folder I have been using today, which is there, but the contents seem to now be mushed up into one, unreadable file (see picture). The file seems to be about the same size as the contents should be, so I'm hoping(!) there may be an easy solution to this. If not, I may have lost a lot of work



After previous problems, I always 'safely remove hardware', but I have been having a few problems where the hdd removes itself and plugs itself back in (ie: makes the der dum, and dum der sounds)

At work I'm on Windows 7, and on a Mac at home.

Any help would be more than gratefully accepted

Thanks

Ambla

bob_a_builder

well 1st thing it to make sure you don't try to write to that disk anymore until you have recovered it ( or not ) - likely to make things worse
Things like GetDataBack have worked well for me in the past + there is a free trial version so you can see if it stands a chance ( PC based though)

Amba_Gambla

Ugh. In the process of Windows 'Scan and Fix'

This could be a late night

Amba_Gambla

Well, 'scan and fix' seemingly left me worse off than before. I've downloaded and tried two recovery programmes and nothing so far.

I'm starting to lose hope for the last 5 weeks worth of work :(:(

bluesnake

If your work is around 2 gig (or have lots of friends), dropbox give 2 gig for starters.

Not the answer for backing up a pc, but for work???

Often when those usb disk start to play up it means it is the beginning of the end

best for fie encryption would probably be Truecrypt. Only seen these below today too and encrypt 2gb free
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/downloads/3249400/boxcryptor-0500-beta/
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/downloads/3249608/secretsync-beta-0169/
think this is unlimited freeware http://www.cloudfogger.com/en/home/screenshots.aspx

Amba_Gambla

Amazing! Can't believe it, but I seem to have most (all?) of my missing files back, and it didn't cost me a penny!

Bob, GetDataBack searches for free, but you have to pay if you want to recover any files. I ended up using RECUVA which worked a treat! (And was completeley FREE)

Thanks for your help

Ambla

Amba_Gambla

bluesnake wrote: »

If your work is around 2 gig (or have lots of friends), dropbox give 2 gig for starters.

Not the answer for backing up a pc, but for work???....

Thanks, but I carry around all my files on a 500gb HDD. I usually back it up every 6 weeks or so, and it turned out that I would have only(?!) lost 3 weeks worth of work this time (but that's still a pain!)

I think I just need to start backing up more often, and start to use a more reliable HDD

Notmyrealname

Amba_Gambla wrote: »

Thanks, but I carry around all my files on a 500gb HDD. I usually back it up every 6 weeks or so

I really wouldn't leave it any more than a week on a hard drive I carried around with me unless it was a SSD drive. Standard hard drives don't like shocks and it'll be getting plenty. With a SSD it is effectively a large memory stick so the problem doesn't exist. With 60GB ones starting at £40, I'd look at one.