Copied the data and now it had vanished

[Gmackey222]

Hey guys,

It has been a few years since I have been on the boards and so I had to create a new login because I forgot my info.

Anyways I used to have a 250 gig drive in my computer and recently gave it to my old wrestling coach because he was running on a 20 gig that was dying and a 40 gig. Needless to say he didn't have much space left. I also got myself a new 750 gig to replace mine. So I had taken it over to his house installed it and transfer all my data to the 750 before formating it. I just used drag and drop because it was mostly audio and video.

Once I put it back in my computer, everything is recognized driver wise, yet it didn't show up as a drive. When I go to disk management in Windows 7, it looks like it is unformatted. I did with NTFS so I am completely confused as to how this could have happened. I'm afraid to do much with it because I know somewhere my 220 gigs is sitting on the drive, but I don't know how to get to it. With most computer issues I'll just experiment until I fix it, but I feel like that is too risky.

I hope someone has some ideas for me. I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks,

Geoffrey Mackey

 

[evongugg]

The mistake was reformatting after the data was transferred.
Reformatting a disk fortunately does not erase the data on the disk, only the data on the address tables. Get some data recovery software to get your files back.

 

[Gmackey222]

I apologize, I actually meant that I formatted the 250 gig drive once I had copied all the necessary data. After re-reading my post I see that I was not clear about that. After copying the data, I did not re-format the 750 gig drive. Still, I have a feeling recovery software may be my only way out. I'm still open to suggestions however.

 

[evongugg]

Thanks. Try a partition recovery program. This one is free. It is based on Linux.

http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page

 

[evongugg]

Test-disk is the utility you want to use from that CD:

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

 

[Paperdoc]

Before you go into data recovery, check one detail in Disk Manager. In the lower right pane where your 750 GB unit is shown, does it have a letter name already? Sometimes when you mount a drive that already has Partitions that have been Formatted, Windows still has trouble figuring out what name to use for it; without a letter name, Windows cannot handle the disk. So, IF there is no name assigned to it, RIGHT-click on the block representing your actual Partition containing the data, and Change (or create) a letter name for it - just use a letter not already in use. Exit out of Disk Manager and reboot to see if it now shows up in My Computer.

While you're in Disk Manager, check a few details. Does the big block representing your drive actually show sub-blocks that are recognized Partition(s), and are they actually Formatted as NTFS File system volumes?