Cannot See Files on External Hard Disk Drive

[deepgrewal22]

I recently purchased a Fantom 500GB USB external hard disk drive. I connected it to my laptop and was able to copy files to it.

I then took this drive and connected it to my desktop PC (in another city, unfortunately) and also had no problems copying files to this drive.

However, when I brought the drive back and re-connected it to my laptop, I don't see any of the files which I copied from the desktop PC. However, disk usage percentage does indicate that the files exist.

The laptop and the desktop PC are both running Windows XP Pro SP3. The Fantom 500GB USB hard disk was formatted by me when I first opened it out of the box (NTFS).

How can I see the files that apparently exist on this hard disk drive using my laptop? They are not hidden files. I know that this is a "Fantom" drive, but I don't want phantom data.

Deep Grewal
"Microsoft Works" - oxymoron

 

[BadBigBen]

You could try:

How to take ownership of a file or a folder in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421

also run CHKDSK /F on the drive...


Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

 

[kjv1611]

If that doesn't work, this one works pretty well, I think:

http://www.partition-recovery.com/

The free version will restore a partition to an image file. The paid version will restore a partition IN PLACE which I think is pretty cool.

--

"If to err is human, then I must be some kind of human!" -Me

 

[deepgrewal22]

Thanx for the reply. I ran CHKDSK /F on the drive and it seemed to have fixed the problem. There were many "orphaned" files which may not have the proper indexing. I don't know why taking a portable hard drive to another machine would cause this to happen.

Deep Grewal
"Microsoft Works" - oxymoron

 

[BadBigBen]

depending on how you traveled, e.g car, airplane etc... can put the drive through some bumping and jolting (which it should survive without a problem) and magnetic fields (e.g. luggage scanner at airport) which could mess with the recorded data...

or it could be just an oddball event a once in a lifetime thing that will never occur again...

but I am glad that you can access the data...

Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

 

[wahnula]

Make sure before you disconnect a USB HDD that you use the "Safely Remove Hardware" feature to stop the drive before removal. This avoids the dreaded "Delayed Write Error".

Tony

Users helping Users...