New files dissapear on external hdd

[monarchdodra]

The title says it all.

Before leaving work, I put a bunch of files on my WD Passport 500gb, and when I got home, none of those files were there.

I immediately thought that it was because of the windows delayed write that didn't occur, since I always just pull out my hard drive, but I got no such message.

The next day, at work, I took the time to remove the drive carefully, then plugged it in again to make sure the files were there, and then I went home with my hard drive. And again! All of these new files were missing! And when I got back to work, they weren't there either.

What happened?

As a precaution, I did a full HDD format, then scanned for hardware errors, before copying my files back on.

Does anybody know what happened, it's as if my home computer is reading another Master File Table or something, or keeping the old version :/

For info, the drive uses ntfs, and OS are XP Pro EN SP(Job2/Home3)

Help?

 

[MrLinux]

Ask your employers/IT department, they may have some security systems/policies that prevents you from copying data to removeable media.

 

[monarchdodra]

I'd really doubt it.
I've been working there 6 months, and the drive goes back and forth everyday with a new file here and there. Sometimes, it's an mp3 I downloaded, and sometimes, highly sensitive and confidential code, always without any problems.

 

[sturm]

The files aren't being set as hidden are they? After copying the files to the external drive bring up the properties and make sure hidden is not checked.

Also make sure that you are actually putting them on that drive and not another one that may have taken that drives letter. Just a thought I had.

 

[monarchdodra]

I was able to find out what happened.

After seeing that when I came back home, it was as if all my changes on the HDD were rolled back, I t became obvious that it was probably a MFT cache problem on my home computer or something.

Turns out I was unplugging the hard drive with my computer on hibernate, went to work, came back home and plugged in the hard drive, woke the computer from hibernation. Windows never saw that the hard drive left, and kept working with his old MFT, eventually overwriting the new one.

Still, I formatted everything in case of file curruption, and I'll never unplug an HDD from an hibernating computer again!