Backed up data ALL gone!

Hi everyone.

Mac OSX Ver 10.7.5, NTFS Driver installed, 3TB WD External HD.

Over the past few days I’ve been backing up the info from an old WD external HD to a new 3TB one.Today I woke to find that all the info that I thought I backed up to the new HD is no longer there. Some of the folders that I created are still there but they are empty,they don’t contain any of the info that I backed up & some of the folders are gone all together. The things is,when I check the HD’s capacity it isn’t 3TB,it’s showing less so the data must still be there but it’s just not showing…How can this be? I just don’t know what to do,my blood pressure is at boiling point.

To make matters worse,my mac is running at a snails pace when the new external HD is plugged in.I cannot do a thing other than curse that spinning beach ball. I have 3 other WD external HD’s & I don’t have any issues backing up or reading data to them.

I wonder if the fact that I backed up data from one external HD directly to another has caused these problems? Usually I would copy data from one external HD to my Macs HD then cut it to from my Mac’s HD & paste it to the other external HD. I just can’t believe all the backed up data is gone,it took hours to back up.Is there anyone that can please help me with this?

It is possible that some of your files are corrupted, you can try running a test using Disk Utility to rule out any possible hardware damage. Check the link below for the steps. 

How to test a drive for defects or problems on a Mac 

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Thank you for responding so quickly. I followed your instructions,Disk Utility was unable to repair the disk but I was able to retrieve the vast majority of the info I had backed up. Thank you so much for your help.