My external hrd drive has failed; help

[KatyMac]

You know when you are responsible & back up everything on an external hard-drive?

Well what do you do when the bugger dies? I had just spent 5 hours sorting out duplication, rubbish and doing filing & the cat knocked it on the floor

When you plug it in all the file names come up in that little box (scrolling through) but when you open explorer it's empty

I cried

Is there anything I can do to save it all?

Do you need to save it all if it is a back up ? You should still have the originals. At least it should all be nice and tidy now after all your work. Maybe best to ditch the external disk, get a new one and take a new set of backups.

And give the cat a kick to make yourself feel better

Yes but I lost my hard drive over christmas so I was about to copy it all back

Duh! I feel such an idiot

Poor cat - she did hear some language

ah - so this isn't the backup - it is actually the real data for now ?

It is odd that the file names are there but nothing shows up. I would have thought the file list was generated when you plug the disk in.I would also have thought if it was physically damaged you wouldn't see anything at all.

I think you probably need to see someone who can check the disk over.

This sounds like a job for the professionals. Do you have a trusted local computer shop you can take it to? If not, I seem to remember that "OnTrack Data recovery" is one of the bigger (and probably more expensive) firms in this business. I haven't used them, so I can't offer any recommendation stronger that "I've heard of them".

Unfortunately, this is also a reminder that you should keep at least 2 backups, preferably with one off site, so you don't lose all your backups if there is a fire.

Best of luck getting it all back.