Can I recover the directory info for an indexed drive that is no longer accessible?

molpot

Commendable
Jul 5, 2016
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0
1,510
I've got a 4TB external drive that recently died without warning ("drive is not accesible the parameter is incorrect") but I had it indexed for windows search, is there any way to recover the file and folder names from windows?

I'd really like to know exactly what was on there because there was too much for me to remember easily and I'd like an inventory of what was lost.
 
Solution
Welcome to the TH community, @molpot!

I'd recommend you check the health and SMART status of your external drive first. Use your HDD manufacturer's brand-specific diagnostic tool to determine that. If there aren't any errors and the drive is healthy, then try running Command Prompt (as Administrator) and then type chkdsk /f /r X: (where X: is the drive letter assigned to your unaccessible HDD).
This chkdsk command will repair problems related to bad sectors, lost clusters, cross-linked files, and directory errors.

Note that it's always recommended to keep at least one more copy of your files stored elsewhere! Any kind of HDD troubleshooting could potentially lead to data loss, so doing a backup of your...
Welcome to the TH community, @molpot!

I'd recommend you check the health and SMART status of your external drive first. Use your HDD manufacturer's brand-specific diagnostic tool to determine that. If there aren't any errors and the drive is healthy, then try running Command Prompt (as Administrator) and then type chkdsk /f /r X: (where X: is the drive letter assigned to your unaccessible HDD).
This chkdsk command will repair problems related to bad sectors, lost clusters, cross-linked files, and directory errors.

Note that it's always recommended to keep at least one more copy of your files stored elsewhere! Any kind of HDD troubleshooting could potentially lead to data loss, so doing a backup of your files beforehand is essential, usually.

Either way, I hope it doesn't come to this.
Let me know how it goes, though. Good luck!
SuperSoph_WD
 
Solution

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