files missing but hd space still used

[electrotec]

I have a 500GB Lacie USB drive that I was storing my .cdg .mp3 files on.
All music was legally ripped from my own collection (it took years!).
The drive was 'stupidly' left as shared without my noticing for about a week.

Yesterday, when looking for a file I found that the "karaoke" and "music" folders are empty. About 400GB of data is gone but the drive still shows 485GB used space. I checked my settings, explorer is set to show hidden & system files.

I am guessing that I am the victim of an on-line attack on my HD. It's just really strange that the files are apparently still there, just not visible or accessable.

I tried various programs (shareware, freshly downloaded but not purchased or registered) only 2 programs that I found "recover my files" and "Media Rescue Pro" will find some of the files but not the .cdg files (there is a preset list of file types for the programs to look for, .cdg is not in the list). The other 'freeware' programs that I found did nothing except 2 files that I had previously deleted. There are no other files in the 'recycler' folder.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Goshawk]

I have a 500GB Lacie USB drive that I was storing my .cdg .mp3 files on.
All music was legally ripped from my own collection (it took years!).
The drive was 'stupidly' left as shared without my noticing for about a week.

Yesterday, when looking for a file I found that the "karaoke" and "music" folders are empty. About 400GB of data is gone but the drive still shows 485GB used space. I checked my settings, explorer is set to show hidden & system files.

I am guessing that I am the victim of an on-line attack on my HD. It's just really strange that the files are apparently still there, just not visible or accessable.

I tried various programs (shareware, freshly downloaded but not purchased or registered) only 2 programs that I found "recover my files" and "Media Rescue Pro" will find some of the files but not the .cdg files (there is a preset list of file types for the programs to look for, .cdg is not in the list). The other 'freeware' programs that I found did nothing except 2 files that I had previously deleted. There are no other files in the 'recycler' folder.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I've had pretty good luck with "getdatabacknow" (www.runtime.org) i bought the full license to the tune of $ 70.00. You can download the program for free and let it detect files that are still there, you are going to need to purchase the full license in order to actually restore files to what they were before.

It sounds like the files are still there, however the file system on the drive got corrupted somehow. The first thing you should do is stop using the drive until you have the means to try and recover the data off of it. The more you still use the drive, the more likely you could be writing over the files that are still there.


~ Gos

 

[electrotec]

I probably should have mentioned that the files that went missing were all in subfolders. It's as though the subfolders were deleted (or maybe a portion of the directory tree) without actually deleting the files.

As it stands I set the drive aside for now, I am just curious (and very concerned) how this could have been accomplished in the first place.

Did my drive go bad or was it an attack?

If I try chkdisk/f will I destroy any chance of recovery?

Should I try reinstalling my lacie installation disc or will this destroy any chance of recovery?