Missing files from my passport

hi there,

I have a wd 500gb external hard. I had some important docs and pics ,and some home made movies on it.A total of 250 gb,more or less. Last time I used it about 1 month ago, to view some video, and it was all there.Today when I pluged it to my laptop, same one as before, and I did not changed anything on my laptop, I’m using an XP 64 os, so today I had no more files on it. It has 465 gb free, which means all my files are gone! what happened and what can I do to recover my pics and videos ?!?!?! i’ve tried a wondershare data recovery, but no result. I need help.:mansad:

I have a 1TB passport. It’s fairly new, just over four months and the same thing has happened to me. I’ve lost all my son’s baby pictures…I’m so upset . 

Does the drive show in Disk Management and what does it say about the drive? Go into folder options and uncheck hidden files and see if that does anything. Has this drive been used on more than one computer?

Joe

Hi there Joe,

yes it does and is working properly, and in the hidden files are the recycle bin, recycler -both empty and system volume info.No I only used it on my laptop. it was in the case all this time, from last time I used it.

thanks

Hi there,

I know !!  I’m also disappointed. I have a Toshiba hard, never had a problem. This was my first WD… And last.

It just disappeared…not a trace. I’m so…

Hey AlinRo, I downloaded this file recovery software and I got all my photos back. It may work for you too.  http://www.piriform.com/recuva  I downloaded the free version and it worked well…helped me recover over 20,000 of my photos. You don’t need the paid for version. Just be sure to click the options then the action tab and tick the box that says “search for undeleted files” that way it would include corrupted files as well.  Also be sure to recover it to some other destination other than the external.  The program took a long time to scan my drive…almost 24 hrs…but in the end it’s all worth it. You have to do it seperately for photos then video…I’m running it for video now. May even run it on my camera’s memory card just to see what I may recover there. I’m impressed with this software since I tried one before and got nothing. But how I’m very happy…I got all my son’s baby ptcs back…yayyyyyyyyyyy!!! Not gonna depend on this PASSPORT to keep my stuff safe anymore though.

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Hi Trini,

Thanks for that soft ! I’ve tried it. It worked for 11 hours and in the end came clean, no pics. I guess that’s it, i’ve lost them for good, and everything else! My question is now: will it happen again?? could I keep using it ?? I don’t want to risk loosing stuff again !!! I guess I just lost 150$ !

Thanks anyway.

He AlinRo,

I know it’s been about a month since you last posted you lost your pics, but i have been having the same problem were my pictures go missing.  I had to fork out the money and buy EASEUS data recovery program.  Its about 70 dollars for registration key.  The program was able to recover all my pictures that went missing.  I did try some free ones but no cigar.  With this one you can try the free one, but it will only allow you to recover a certain amount of Gigs.  let me know if it works for you. 

I don’t believe this stupid unit is even backing anything up… stopped working for me months ago!!!  This is the most frustrating, user-unfriendly piece of hardware I have ever encountered.   Just unbelievable how WD hides your files and simply makes it a nightmare…

Time to bin it and go buy something that works.  Geez, backing up is so so important and these guys FAIL…

Uninstall the Smartware reformat the drive and use something else for backup. I only did one backup with Smartware and dumped it. Maybe something like SyncToy http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?DisplayLang=en&id=15155  from MS would work better.

Joe