Disappearing Files From External Hdd - Complicated

E

elsie1

Registered
Hello! I have a seagate backup drive of 1TB capacity. A few months ago, my files no longer showed up when I open the drive on my mac. However, it says that 230GB of space is being used up. I have tried several things but none of them helped.

- Installing Paragon NTFS
- Using the command to show hidden files
- Mounting the drive on a windows computer

I'm on OS X El captain, and it says that my drive is in NTFS format. I'm really desperate to fix this issue because it's been months and I really need the files inside. Any help would be really appreciated! Thank you very much! :)
 
If you have Paragon NTFS drivers installed, then you should be able to try a repair in the Mac's Disk Utility.
If that doesn't work, then if you have access to a Windows computer, try using the Windows disk tools to do a drive scan.

Does "230GB" sound about right for what you expect to be stored on that drive?
Do the files show up when you browse through the drive while connected to Windows?
Is your external drive a normal, direct connect (USB) drive; or an NAS, that uses a network connection (maybe using an ethernet cable connected to your router)

Finally, NTFS format drive is really NOT a good choice for a backup for your Mac, because if you have to recover files on a Mac, then you have to make sure about the NTFS drives (such as the Paragon software that you are using) on any Mac that you need to use that backup, and of course, NTFS functionality is not native, so replacing a hard drive on a Mac can give you some issues with that external NTFS drive.
Well, I guess I'm not really helping you much - but do try both Disk Utility - and the Windows disk maintenance tools to try for a repair on that drive. You may also need to get one of the more specialized NTFS repair tools used on Windows. A local PC repair shop would be a great place to go, even a bestbuy "geek squad" would be able to decide if your drive is good or bad, probably pretty quickly.
 
DeltaMac said:
If you have Paragon NTFS drivers installed, then you should be able to try a repair in the Mac's Disk Utility.
If that doesn't work, then if you have access to a Windows computer, try using the Windows disk tools to do a drive scan.

Does "230GB" sound about right for what you expect to be stored on that drive?
Do the files show up when you browse through the drive while connected to Windows?
Is your external drive a normal, direct connect (USB) drive; or an NAS, that uses a network connection (maybe using an ethernet cable connected to your router)

Finally, NTFS format drive is really NOT a good choice for a backup for your Mac, because if you have to recover files on a Mac, then you have to make sure about the NTFS drives (such as the Paragon software that you are using) on any Mac that you need to use that backup, and of course, NTFS functionality is not native, so replacing a hard drive on a Mac can give you some issues with that external NTFS drive.
Well, I guess I'm not really helping you much - but do try both Disk Utility - and the Windows disk maintenance tools to try for a repair on that drive. You may also need to get one of the more specialized NTFS repair tools used on Windows. A local PC repair shop would be a great place to go, even a bestbuy "geek squad" would be able to decide if your drive is good or bad, probably pretty quickly.
Click to expand...

Hi! Thank you for your reply! No my files don't show up on windows either. Windows says that the drive cannot be accessed and needs to be formatted. I think 230GB sounds quite right? and the drive uses a direct USB. To be honest I don't think I ever tried to format the drive, but I've backed files up from a windows computer before and then accessed the drive on my mac and for some time it was working perfectly fine.

I just tried repairing it using disk utility on mac but nothing happened... ):

Thank you for your reply though I will try repairing it on windows as well!
 
Have you EVER, with this external drive, ever back up ANY files from a Mac?
Or, are there only files that you saved from a Windows PC, and nothing else?

If you have only files that you saved from Windows, then you should not have problems reading and copying files FROM that hard drive to some other drive. You would also not even need the the Paragon software. That would ONLY be required if you wanted to either save new files, or modify existing files on that NTFS hard drive.

I suspect that you will need some specialized drive repair software, and that you will need to do this repair when booted to Windows.
And, you may need to find some company that specializes in data recovery.
And, you will probably get to decide if those files are really important to you, as data recovery can be quite expensive.
 
DeltaMac said:
Have you EVER, with this external drive, ever back up ANY files from a Mac?
Or, are there only files that you saved from a Windows PC, and nothing else?

If you have only files that you saved from Windows, then you should not have problems reading and copying files FROM that hard drive to some other drive. You would also not even need the the Paragon software. That would ONLY be required if you wanted to either save new files, or modify existing files on that NTFS hard drive.

I suspect that you will need some specialized drive repair software, and that you will need to do this repair when booted to Windows.
And, you may need to find some company that specializes in data recovery.
And, you will probably get to decide if those files are really important to you, as data recovery can be quite expensive.
Click to expand...

Hi, I have saved a bulk of the files into the drive from a windows computer. However, I've also saved some files using a macbook, but by dragging and dropping it in the finder. I see, but I'm unable to view the files at all.

Indeed, the one recommended by the company is expensive as well.. I might try repairing it again on a windows computer then decide what next to do. thank you!
 
Hmm... In your first post, you said that you can't see the files at all.
But in your post #5, you said
I see, but I'm unable to view the files at all.
Click to expand...

Just so I understand - Does that mean that you can see the names of your files, but you can't open or view the contents of the files?

Lastly - do you see only older files (from PC days), or maybe just (more recent) files that you would have saved from your macbook? Or no file names at all?
 
Hmm it's like totally empty. When i access it on my mac and open it on finder the window is blank if that makes sense? :)
 
Hi! I've got it sorted out! Turns out it was a really simple thing (it took me so long only bc i don't own a windows computer and had to borrow). I did a disk repair on it on windows and then it worked fine. I could access the files on my mac too! Thank you for your time though! :)
 
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