Messed up EHD and WMV/WMA will no longer play - help!!

[Mag476]

If the backup process was interupted they may appear to have data by looking at the size of the files, but they're really just shells containing no data.

[babydoll]

But the backup process seemed to me to be successful... and transferring the files takes time, indicating the size is relevant...

 

But even if they are empty shells - then there's a way of recovering the deleted files right? There's always a way isn't there?

[4ndy]

I'm not sure which file recovery program is recomended here. Personally i've used Piriform Recuva with good results. Presumably you need to restore the original files back from the external drive.

 

Edit - Results will depend on how you formatted it.

[babydoll]

Well this is why I had to back it up in the first place, because when I formatted the disc it deleted everything on it so the only version of the files I now have is the backed up versions on my laptop

[4ndy]

Similarly, when you format a drive (especially if you use the Quick Format option), Windows erases the hidden index but does not overwrite the existing files until you start saving new data to it. Recuva can still scan the drive's contents to find your files.

 

Quoted from here

[babydoll]

OK - except after formatting the drive, the files that I knew were working (my Charmed and CSI videos) I put back onto the EHD so that I could delete them from my laptop - because backing up everything onto my laptop put my free space in the red and my laptop couldn't cope - does this mean that I have now written over the hard drive's memory of the other files? I have only put onto the hard drive back what files were previously there

[4ndy]

Possibly damaged some (depending on how full it was). It's worth scanning the drive with recuva (as is) just to see what's there. You don't have to restore anything. However, the longer you leave it the more likely the files will become damaged. I don't think there's much movement of data in mechanical drives other than if they get dropped / bashed (disregarding routine maintenance defrag etc (could be prudent to turn this off)) at which point the controller will try to move data out of physically damaged areas to the "reserve tank".. This is unlike SSD's BTW which are moving stuff about all the time doing according to their wear levelling algorithm etc. I think mechanical drives are far better for data security. I've even swapped heads between drives in the past to recover "lost data" other than hot-swapping this is as hardcore as it gets?? :)

[Plastic Nev]

Sorry to say, it looks like we are getting to the end of the line here, you can try, and I would do so, try Recuva on the EHD as 4ndy suggests, to see if anything can still be recovered from the as yet unused portion, but I don't hold out much hope of retrieving everything.

 

The real problem started when the EHD was reformatted, if you had come and asked about that and not reformatted we would possibly have had greater success.

 

Nev.

[KenB]

Hi babydoll,

 

What I can't seem to understand is ....

Nev recapped and asked if you formatted the External Hard Drive and then realised you had lost your files. You used Easy Recovery pro to recover them to your Laptop.

Filling up the Laptop Hard drive in the process.

 

I read your early posts as ...

You reinstalled Win7. You were getting error messages with the External Drive.

You backed up your files from the external drive to the Laptop drive.

You formatted the External Drive

 

I backed them up using Easy Recovery Pro when I needed to format the disc - the files are now on my laptop

You have said this a couple of times ......which implies that the files were moved to the laptop BEFORE you formatted the External Drive.

 

Which is it ?

 

=============

 

Take just one of the files on the laptop and transfer it to a memory stick.

Try running this from a different machine.

[Mag476]

I looked around a bit for Easy Recovery Pro, it specifically states that you should not install the application on any partition that has potential data loss, and by the sounds of it you had alot of problems with that hard drive before you formatted, it very well could have been interupted as you were backing up the data. I also found this. It really looks like the backup was not successful :(.

 

As for the file I requested via PM, here's the info it contained.

 

General
Complete name                    : C:\Users\-----\Desktop\03-Pilgrimage (feat. Joanna Stevens and Leah Randi).MP3
File size                        : 9.35 MiB

Here is what it should roughly look like.

 

General
Complete name                    : C:\Users\-----\Desktop\New Music\Chris Reece feat. Jennifer Needles - Never Let Me Go (Extended Mix).mp3
Format                           : MPEG Audio
File size                        : 16.7 MiB
Duration                         : 7mn 14s
Overall bit rate                 : 320 Kbps
Album                            : Never Let Me Go EP
Album/Performer                  : Chris Reece feat. Jennifer Needles
Track name                       : Never Let Me Go (Extended Mix)
Performer                        : Chris Reece feat. Jennifer Needles
Genre                            : Progressive House/Trance
Recorded date                    : 2011
Writing library                  : LAME3.97 
ISRC                             : NLF711001622
Cover                            : Yes
Cover type                       : Cover (front)
Cover MIME                       : image/jpeg

Audio
Format                           : MPEG Audio
Format version                   : Version 1
Format profile                   : Layer 3
Duration                         : 7mn 15s
Bit rate mode                    : Constant
Bit rate                         : 320 Kbps
Channel(s)                       : 2 channels
Sampling rate                    : 44.1 KHz
Compression mode                 : Lossy
Stream size                      : 16.6 MiB (99%)
Writing library                  : LAME3.97 
Encoding settings                : -m s -V 4 -q 3 -lowpass 20.5

As you can see the file you sent me contains no data, which I mentioned something above in another post, if the backup was not successful it may have just created a container file which appears (by size) to contain data, where as it's really just an empty shell.

[KenB]

Mag476

 

I think this confirms your earlier suspicion. Nice one :)

 

babydoll - it is important that you do NOT save anything else to the External Drive.

 

mag476,

I suggest that you walk babydoll through the recovery process again. ( If you don't mind ? )

Hopefully you can recover some files for her.

 

Good luck.

[Mag476]

I'll do my best but I fear that if the only files babydoll has are the backed up versions and the originals no longer exist due to format then there will be little to no chance of recovery. There may be a couple of files that powered through the backup process unharmed but I wouldn't keep my hopes up.

 

Babydoll if you could tell me how big all of the backed up files are combined, and if you would like to check individual files yourself i'd recommend downloading MediaInfo it's a free useful program that can be downloaded from here.

 

You can simply drag and drop your media into the program GUI and it will display technical data for that file. It supports all formats you listed in one of your previous posts. If any of the media displays technical information in that program please seperate it from the rest as it may be recoverable.

 

Also put all of your backed up files together in a single folder (if they're not together already) and download Media Checker from this website. This is just to check the integrity of your files. Once you run it just simply browse to the folder with all of your backed up media in and let it run, it shouldn't take more than a few minutes.

 

Then post any results back here please.

[Plastic Nev]

If none of the above can do anything, the only other option now would be professional data recovery specialists.

 

They can delve deeper into the original external drive that originally held those files using specialist forensic type equipment and software not available to us.

 

However that will cost quite a lot of money and even then may not be fully successful at retrieving all the files. You have to ask yourself what are those files worth?

If they were for professional entertainers use, perhaps, but otherwise no.

 

Nev.