I just got this 2TB MyBook external drive and have been backing things up to it manually (using Windows Explorer in WinXP). I needed to back up some additional files from a Win7 laptop so I connected it there. It recognized the drive, I made a new folder to put those files, and copied over what I needed to. But now back in WinXP all I can see is that new folder. All of the stuff I backed up is invisible (I think it’s all still there…) as well as the folders with the Smartware data. All I can see now is the new folder, recycle bin, RECYCLER, and system volume information.
Also, the drive shows it has 354G of data, which sounds about right. The Win7 hard drive was only 300G and I didn’t copy all of it over. So, the data is there, but why can’t I see it or access it? This is bizarre.
Please help if you can.
I’ll give this a try tonight. I can’t imagine that the files are just gone (as well as the installed WD programs that were there). I did re-connect it to the Win7 laptop and it was only showing the new folder (called Brad2, for reference). On both machines, this is the only folder visible. Many of the things I copied to it were from user directories like My Documents, My Videos, etc.
One thing I do remember is that the Win7 machine may have had trouble finding a driver when I plugged the drive in (didn’t have Internet access) yet the drive was still visible and available for use. (if this matters)
Well, I decided to uncheck Read Only for all of the files’ attributes in Brad2 and as it was going through the files, I recognized some of the misplaced folders and files. So, consider this puzzle solved, in a way. Somehow or other, all of the other folders had been moved into the “Pics” folder in Brad2. Weird, but not as weird as the files just not being anywhere to be found at all. I consider this a big win, especially after reading the horror stories about actual errors. Going to need back up of the back ups, I think.
Thanks for responding.
