Recovery of picture-archive.

[Sune]

Last weekend I was transferring my pictures folder from my backup drive to my computer after installing Windows 7, but suddenly, when the process of moving the files was finished, the folder was to be found nowhere. I tried to locate the files but neither where they in any other folders, nor in my recycle bin.

 

I tried searching for them with Recuva and after some searches I ticked 'Include non-deleted files' and suddenly Recuva found around 10.000 pictures on my backup drive. The pictures seem to all have been renamed and moved to a hidden folder called '?'. While Recuva finished the scan and moved on to going through all the pictures ("second scan"), windows came up with a warning message telling me that the drive 'G:' had to be formatted before I could use it again. 'G:' was the backup drive where, at the same time, Recuva at the same time was in the middle of its 'second' scan. Recuva finished the second scan and showed the results with the folder '?' containing lots of pictures in condition: 'good'.

I marked all the pictures and files in '?' and clicked 'recover'. Sadly Recuva seemed to run through all the images, but neither of them was recovered showing a constant '0% recovered', while the progressbar moved to the end and told me 'no files have been recovered'.

 

Since this is my whole picture-archive I would really to get all or as many as possible of the pictures back, so I'd like to ask on some advice on what to do. Recuva apperently can find the files but not recover them, while I'm told the harddrive has to be formatted before I can use it (which could lead to the reason why Recuva cannot recover the found images, since windows won't work the drive). My logic tells me though, that if I format my drive ALL files will be deleted permanently (since a format goes deeper than just deleting windows' index as far as I recall?).

 

(After Recuva failed to recover the images I have unplugged the drive, with the intent of not using it until I find a possible solution to this problem.)

 

Thank you for your help!

[Augeas]

It looks as if you have lost some system files on your G drive that prevents Windows from showing your data, thus Recuva needs to be run with the Scan for Non-Deleted Files option. I assume from this that you installed Recuva on the C drive.

 

Where did you try to recover the files to? You should be recovering to a folder on the C drive. The path of ? is I believe because Recuva can't determine the original folder name, and is not to be worried about. You can sort folders out after you have recovered the files. Don't attempt to format the drive until you have given up hope of recovering anything.

[Sune]

Recuva is installed on the C drive, yes, and I was trying to recover the images onto the C drive as well, which sadly failed.

 

I'll follow my logic and your advice in not formatting the drive.

I think I'll try to see if I can recover the files once more, hopefully without running into error messages.

 

If anyone have more information or advice on the case, do not hold back. Thank you!