Missing files on unplugged drive

Clearcut · 13 May 2018 at 17:33

Hi, I unplugged an internal storage drive containing 700gb of data whilst tidying case.

When I plugged it back in, the computer is showing it as a blank drive.

Any idea what has happened to the data? I never formatted anything? Appreciate any help as I have lost a lot of stuff.
Thanks

Clearcut · 13 May 2018 at 22:19

I did a System Restore prior to my screenshot.

Clearcut · 15 May 2018 at 08:00

Thanks for the replies, I ran Recuva and it returned thousands of files scattered to the wind, it's a shame it doesn't return them as the full programs.

I recovered a lot of photos, will I still be able to run chkdsk on the drive if I have put photos on it and get all my other stuff back?

Clearcut · 15 May 2018 at 10:27

Thank you.

Clearcut · 16 May 2018 at 06:06

chkdsk just told me the disk was fine but didn't reveal or restore anything - unless there was something else I should have done.

Clearcut · 17 May 2018 at 06:49

zola25 said:
I think you've taken the best approach, the odds of recovering everything are far from certain. Running chkdsk before Recuva may have made even more files unrecoverable. It's generally best to run a recovery tool prior to making ANY changes that will write to the disk.

I appreciate this is an odd situation in that the disk appears otherwise fine, but unfortunately this highlights why a robust backup strategy is required for anything you'd rather not lose.

Somebody kindly provided me with some good recovery software last night but alas it only yielded about 1gb of nothing (out of 800gb of data). One thing listed in the result was indeed chkdsk so I think you are right.