How To Open Files From External Hard Drive After Reformat
Sep 16, 2012
Just recently i had to reformat my computer, i had some pretty personal documents where i placed in a password protected folder. I forgot exactly how i password protected it but to access the file i would click on a file called locker, and a black screen would open up, i would type in the password push enter and the file would appear, then to lock it i just open locker again and push "y".
I had to reformat my computer so copied all the contents that was inside the folder (and not the locker) onto a hard drive and reformmated my computer, however, now i cannot access these files. I can see them but they all say access denied due to permission rights.
I've followed all the security changes ive found and made myself the owner, set security settings to full control etc however, still cannot access these files. They are really important and was wondering if there was a way i can access them again or is there any programs that can unlock them? Ive tried all the programs similar to |unlocker"
I have a hard drive I recovered from my old Dell laptop when the motherboard gave out. Originally, I just put it in an external hard case and have been using it as external storage. Now it is getting filled up, so I would like to reformat it to remove the OS partition (Vista) to give me access to the entire drive. I have removed and baked up all my files, but cannot find a way to repartition the drive to remove the OS volume. Disk manager will not let me access that volume to delete it - nor will diskpart. In fact, only the non-OS volume even shows up with a drive letter in diskpart.
I have searched the web but have only been able to find info on how to reformat the main hard drive...and this is definitely NOT what I want to do.
I can't open my old external Harddrive. Earlier I replaced with a new one. Both Harddrives show in my device manager. But old one does'nt give me open when I right click.
my external hard drive is already full (how foolish of me) i did not notice it. I can see it in my computer but i cannot open it. I try to format it using my WIN 7 OS but still it will not open.Is there any chance to recover my file. It none please help me how to format it.
I droped my hard drive yesterday, and I even can NOT open the hard drive today when I connect the hard drive to my computer, it can not open it. the hard drive light is flashing.
I consider myself relatively computer savvy, and I even talked to my IT-professional soon-to-be brother-in-law... but now I turn to you, BleepingComputer. I really need help here.Short Version:I keep all of my personal files on an external hard drive. That 1TB hard drive was getting full, so I bought a new 2.5TB hard drive. I start working from the files on the new drive. After about 30 seconds or so, folders just show as 0 bytes and "There are no files in this folder". The hard drive works on other computers (HP laptop) but not my Dell desktop. This has happened (sort of) with three different, brand new external hard drives. What would cause this?Super Long VersionI'm running a Dell Precision T5400 workstation with Windows 7 64Bit Home Premium. I keep two 1TB redundant drives at all times, synced monthly via SyncToy. The 1TB drives were filling up so I bought two 2TB Seagate external drives. And then this string of events happened:
1) Copied all of the data from the 1TB to a 2TB SEAGATE drive. 2) SyncToy'ed them to ensure that all of the data was definitely there. 3) Retired the old 1TB drive. 4) Began to duplicate the 2TB drive to the other 2TB drive. 5) In the middle of copying, I received the error, (something like) "Cannot copy files as the source file no longer exists". 6) Checked Disk Manager, and the 2TB drive shows up as RAW format now?! It was originally NTFS. Search Seagate forums and you'll find that this is a common problem. 7) Restart. Same problem. The other 2TB SEAGATE drive now has "USB device not recognized" errors. 8) Try restarting, copying over and over. Same results. 9) Plug both drives into my work laptop (Mac Bootcamp Windows 7 64bit). Both show up as "Drive needs to be formatted to proceed". 10) I format both of them and perform check disks on my Mac Laptop. 11) They're fine. Then I plug them into my Dell Desktop. 12) I run SeaTools on them. One has an error and can be RMA'd. The other is "USB device not recognized".I RMA them both and mail them in.At this point, I hate Seagate because they seemingly sold me two faulty 2TB drives. 13) I buy two new 2.5TB Western Digital Hard drives.(expensive. btw). 14) I un-retire my old 1TB drive and plug it into my Mac Bootcamp laptop. Disk has errors. Run the recovery tool. All seems well. 15) I copy my 1TB to one of the 2.5TB WD drives on my HP laptop (it's super old, and I had to go to work with my Mac) 16) I plug in the new 2.5TB drive to the Dell Desktop, and some of the folders show up empty?!? 17) Plug that drive back into the old HP Laptop all of the files show up.At this point, I'm super confused. There's clearly something wrong with my desktop? 18) I perform the following while checking the disk in between each new trial: system restore, uninstall USB drivers/host controllers, start in safe mode. Nothing works. Same problem. Folders show as empty. 19) Plug the drive back into the HP laptop. Files are there. 20) Re-install BIOS on the desktop. Folders show as empty. 21) Run Malwarebytes, HiJackThis... nothing out of the ordinary. 22) The computer doesn't fully start up when the 2.5TB WD drive is plugged in. 23) I run startup recovery. It spits out a bunch of errors. Fixes some, some not. 24) Folders show as empty.
I am trying to defragment my external hard drive, a Western Digital passport 500gb. A lot of space is being taken up by these unmovable files and I want to consolidate the free space.
The recycle bin is empty, I have deleted the WD folder, I have deleted the "system volume information" by booting into Ubuntu live. I don't know why there was a system volume information anyway, system restore is not on for this drive.
I have "show hidden files and folders" and "show operating system files" selected and cannot see anything other than the empty recycle bin (and of course all the data on there, the data is back ups of photo's, movies, etc.) ....so what is there left that is "unmovable"? I can't see anything at all that would be considered a system file.
I have a external hard drive with lots of movies on, now it takes explorer ages to display them all, I have set view to just details as I thought it would speed up the displaying of them. Is there any way to make them display faster? I have K-Lite codec pack installed if that's any help.
I have an external hard drive, I copied onto the computer but the files are confusing. There are 279 files and files within files. How do I get them back to their original format for example word, excel, etc.
I have a Seagate 1.5 TB Free Agent External Hard Drive . I have a folder with approx500 GB in this H.D. This folder have some other 3 -400 folders . Sudenly , when I open the H.D. I cannot see this folder ; when I check the H.D.'s properties the folders / files are in the H.D.
I am using a brand-new Dell Inspiron One model with a Lacie-model external hard-drive, on Windows 7. All of a sudden, when I click to view my folders, they are completely empty. When clicking on the My Computer option, my hard drive is there, showing 76 GB free out of a total of 232 GB, but everything appears to be gone. When I click on those files, I receive the error stating I am afraid to re-start or unplug my hard drive.
I keep a lot of confidential information on both my C: and an external hard drive. Is there a way for me to password protect the folders and files on these drives?
i took out the hard drive from my laptop that had a BSOD and can't boot. I boutght an enclosure n plugged it using usb to another laptop so i can get my files, but when i click on the disk a window pops up saying disk is not formatted..i dont want to lose my files si i downloaded tesdisk. When i choose "Analyse" it seems that it finds four partitions, but above each one there's a warning "Incorrect number of heads/cylinders 255 (NFTS) ! =240 (HD) or Bad sector head and Bad Ending Head and Bad Starting head..I dont know what to do next.
I am trying to transfer files on my external hard drive (Toshiba Canvio - Windows XP) to my new computer (Windows 7), but when I click on the file located on the external hard drive, I get the following messsage: "please select a valid job". How can I transfer all of the old files on my external drive to my new computer?
I just figured out that I can't delete files from my external hard drive. It's WD Elements 320GB. Only thing I did before this occured is that I converted file system from FAT32 to NTFS via command in cmd prompt, but I'm not sure if that showed up after that. So, I don't have "delete" or "rename" commands on right click. Backup of all files is a no go since I don't have so much free space atm. I use my user account which is also admin account.
I have a Titan 500 GB portable hard drive, the computer will after a longer than normal time recognize the PHD, the list of files will open up. But when I try to open the file, I get a non responsive message, then it just freezes.
I purchased a Silicon Power Rugged Armor A80 external hard drive to back up my computer & I can't get it to work. When I try to back up MY Documents, it scans the files, then the window says "wrong input" & "access denied".I have been trying to get help from Silicon Power customer service, but they haven't been able to shed any light on my problem. I'm running Windows 7 Professional & have Norton Internet Security. Could there be some kind of incompatibility with my OS or Norton that's preventing access to the files?
Recently my laptop crashed beyond repair, and has had to be rebuilt. It now operates on Windows 7.Luckily I had backed up some important files onto a portable external Lacie Hardrive. I now need to return some of the files back to the laptop so that I can use them..but I can't seem to find a way to do it!! I suppose I'm just being 'thick'..but can anyone tell me how to do it.
I had backed up (on my main hdd) several pictures/documents/movies from an old harddrive several years ago- recently i tried to access it and while i can see the whole file structure and names and even information im unable to open any of them- this is almost across the board with the exception of maybe a couple files. I wonder if it could maybe that these are from a different windows based os and maybe incompatible with this computer? could it be a 32bit/64bit problem? or maybe a different file system?
I was messing around with the permissions and sharing properties of an external hard drive last night. not sure what I did but I cannot play video files from that hard drive anymore. I get this error message in vlc media player.
I have taken ownership of all the files and folders on an old hard drive, but am still unable to access many of these files. When checking in the Security tab, I see myself as the owner with full admin permissions, but still cannot open the files
I have a problem for a Mac formatted WD My Passport external drive. PC recognizes the WD Smartware part of the disk but not the data. I want to reformat the whole drive to Windows 7, but I can't see any options to do that.
.I didn't wait for the computer to tell me it was ok to remove the drive in the usb port. Now my computer no longer recognizes the external drive After removing my external hard drive (without the ok) my computer no longer recognizes the external hard drive. What do I do.
I've ordered new parts for a new computer and I read that I could transfer the license being used on this (current) computer to the new one because I have the full version of Windows not the OEM. I plan on (if possible) transfering my windows 7 license to the new computer/SSD and use this old hard drive for storage/backup. But I'm a little confused/unsure about a few things: 1. Do I install Windows 7 and activate it on the new computer/SSD first and then remove Windows 7 from the old hard drive? Or do I have to remove it from the old computer before attempting to install on the new one, 2. How do I remove Windows from the old drive? I haven't reformatted before but from what I've read from guides, I use the windows CD to reformat, but it reinstalls a clean version of Windows. How would I clean the old drive without reinstalling Windows?
