I deleted all the files on the external USB drive (H:) that I use as the backup for my F: data drive in preparation for getting a good, clean F: backup with no extraneous files.

When I checked my F: drive before running the backup it was completely empty!. Well, not completely empty -- the Recycle Bin folder is still there (129 bytes) and System Volume Information folder is there (0 bytes), but NOTHING ELSE. I suppose it is remotely possible that I deleted the files on the F: drive and not the H: drive, but that is unlikely -- I triple checked the drive letter as I did the deletions, and the H: drive is empty as well.

I have not written a single byte to the F: drive since the disaster, so the data should be recoverable with an undelete utility. Right? Please, please tell me that it can be recovered. The data on that drive represents an enormous amount of my time and work. It is all replicable, but would take a minimum of six months to do. Over 200 GB of data, hundreds of hours of my time...

What should I do now? My first impulse is to download an undelete program and turn it loose, but considering the magnitutde of the problem and the value of the data, I want to get expert opinion and specific recommendations first.

Oh, and just to make things worse (maybe not, maybe it makes them better?) when I deleted the files (if I actually deleted them from the F: drive and not the H: drive) I deleted them with Shift-DEL, bypassing the recycle bin.

Recommendations?

tanstaafl.

Shift-del isn't a problem compared to going via the recycle bin.

You definitely don't want to write to the drive any more so you're looking good there.

First I'd get a linux boot disk like Knoppix and make a byte for byte backup of the empty drive using dd. You may need to purchase some more storage to do this but given the situation I don't think that will be a big issue for you. Storage is cheap these days.

dd if=/dev/sdx of=<output file> where x is the is drive letter of the empty drive. You can find this via dmesg. I'm not sure of your linux skills but we can easily help you there.

I've had good success with R-Studio NTFS at recovering files. It isn't free though. You can run it and it won't write to the drive. You just need to recover to another partition of course.

You might try downloading something like GetDataBack for NTFS. It's one of those tricky little "free" downloads that says "oh yeah, of course, here's your files, and that'll be $80 if you want them back."

You might also try one of the programs listed here. I've had some luck with Recuva before.

Man, is there a techno-flu going around? My phone is acting up, the AppleTV I'm trying to fix for my mom is giving me all kinds of annoyances, and my wife just called because her work laptop, which she brought out to "middle of nowhere" West Virginia for a meeting (where she took notes for 3 all-day meetings), just had its hard drive die. So she's lost all that work... Damn.

(See attached...)

tanstaafl.

Looks good - lucky. At risk of stating the obvious recovery to another a drive is imperative - a bit hard to make out in the attachment.

That reminds me - my MP3 drive went on the fritz before I went away - pretty sure it's a total loss. My empeg is my "backup" of that so I need to get to recovering my MP3s from it.

Out of curiosity, what do you mean by "on the fritz?" Perhaps you could use the old "drive in the freezer" trick to get the files you need off?

My wife's drive (as discussed above) appears to have completely died, sadly. Not sure if even the freezer trick will get it back, but I won't know until she brings the laptop home from her trip tomorrow. I have my fingers crossed, though, as she has a seven-page document of meeting notes on there that she hadn't gotten the chance to off-load to anything yet. She couldn't even email them to herself after the meeting, as for some reason the meeting rooms don't have any network access, and the laptop died somewhere between the meeting and her room. Ugh.

"On the fritz" equals broken or not working. American apparently although I'm Australian. I should have said "buggered" or "stuffed" although I know that "buggered" has different less friendly meanings elsewhere

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-ont4.htm

In my case the drive was preventing the Windows machine from booting and a Knoppix disk had issues booting also. I expect the freezer trick helps with specific problems although I'm not sure what exactly and I don't know what is wrong with my drive.

I think we have a miscommunication here. I understand the phrase "on the fritz." What I was attempting to ask was, what specifically is happening?

The fact that a live CD isn't booting either sounds like it might be something other than the hard disk. Have you tried any other live CDs? Like an Ubuntu install disc?

It's definitely the HD. Machine boots and works fine when it's disconnected. LiveCD boots fine when it's disconnected also. It seems to spin OK. It appears the interface (i.e. electronics) has gone a bit funky.

I don't know if it is possible any more, but maybe you can source a controller board from an identical drive and transplant over to get it to work long enough to get the data off?

Stig

Me too

It's definitely possible. I'm just not sure where you get them. I'm pretty sure there's a service I've found online in the past where you send the drive to them, and they have this huge collection of replacement boards.

Hmm...I'll see if I can find that again...

It's been mentioned before, there are companies specializing in recovery. Expensive, but for 6mos of back effort...

Actually, if it's just the board, it's not all that expensive. Certainly worth the cost if you have valuable data in there. If they have to actually open the drive up, that's where we start talking serious cash.

By the way, my wife's laptop is perfectly fine. It turns out to simply be a major hardware flaw, or a flaw in her IT department at the very least. I opened up the cover over the hard disk, and found that the drive had simply slipped completely off its contacts. Either some IT person forgot to screw it down, or there just isn't anything that screws it down, which means it's free to work its way loose every time the laptop is put in its bag trackpad side down. Regardless, she's happy she didn't lose 7 pages of extensive meeting notes for an all-day meeting in the middle of nowhere