HDD shows up, shows data, no folders or files visible

MountainKing · 27 Mar 2011

I just reinstalled Windows 7 64bit after a crash. I reconnected my second HDD to the machine where prior to the crash I stored all my photos and music.

The problem is that there appears to be no folders or files visible in the drive, despite it showing over 300GB of used space. See the attached screenshot for a better view of what I am talking about.

Drive F is the first partition on the drive
Drive G is the second partition on the drive

--Both should have a ton of data on them, but I can't see any folders.

Am I missing something stupid? I'm not panicked yet, but drive F is really important to me.

Thanks EDIT***I just booted into the same PC via a Knoppix Live DVD and this OS sees all my files just as pretty as you please... so clearly the data is all there (thank the FSM), but Windows is misconigured. This is a gonna be a facepalm when I figure out what I did wrong isnt it?

OldMX · 27 Mar 2011

Hidden Files and Folders - Show or Hide

Take Ownership Shortcut

Ztruker · 27 Mar 2011

Two suggestions.

First, remove Active from the F: drive. Should only be one active partition.
If that doesn't fix it, Take Ownership of the drive.

See here: Access Denied to 2nd hard drive in Win 7 Professional 64 - Microsoft Answers

The last post in the thread has a link to a .pdf with complete directions, including screen shots, title: Take Ownership and Give Permissions for entire hard drive

MountainKing · 27 Mar 2011

Ztruker said:

Two suggestions.

First, remove Active from the F: drive. Should only be one active partition.

I can't figure out how to remove "Active" from that drive, when I right click on it the menu option: "Mark Partition as Active" is greyed out, yet the drive status line still reads "Healthy(Active, Primary Partition)".

Bare Foot Kid · 27 Mar 2011

Hello.

Have a look at Option Two #2 in this tutorial at the link below; be sure to run the command from an elevated command window.

Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times

MountainKing · 27 Mar 2011

Ztruker said:

See here: Access Denied to 2nd hard drive in Win 7 Professional 64 - Microsoft Answers

The last post in the thread has a link to a .pdf with complete directions, including screen shots, title: Take Ownership and Give Permissions for entire hard drive

I followed the PDF instructions and took ownership of the drive and granted myself permissions, but when I look in the drive it still reads "This folder is empty." There is no error message.

There is data in there, but I still can't get to it... argh!

I have attached an updated screenshot.

I was able to remove the "active" flag thanks to the Barefoot Kid's suggestion.... thanks.

gregrocker · 27 Mar 2011

Try this method using Install DVD or Repair CD to copy out stranded data: Copy & Paste - in Windows Recovery Console - Windows 7 Forums

If that fails, try this: Paragon rescue disk; change drive letter; recover data

Or use the Knoppix to copy the files over to external or another HD, wipe and format the problem HD.

MountainKing · 27 Mar 2011

gregrocker said:

Try this method using Install DVD or Repair CD to copy out stranded data: Copy & Paste - in Windows Recovery Console - Windows 7 Forums

If that fails, try this: Paragon rescue disk; change drive letter; recover data

Or use the Knoppix to copy the files over to external or another HD, wipe and format the problem HD.

First I tried Knoppix, and that got half my data back. My Media Drive had two folders in it, Music and Photos. The Music folder copied over to a different HDD with no problem, but when I tried to copy my Photos; Knoppix told me there was only 4KB of data in the folder and I didn't have permission to access it. My heart sank, if I lost those photos I would have lost about 6 months worth of stuff as my back up is a little out of date...

Second I tried Copy & Paste - in Windows Recovery Console - Windows 7 Forums, but that was no better than Windows explorer in Windows... nothing, then I really started to panic.
Then I dusted off my old "Ultimate Boot Disc." Ultimate Boot CD - OverviewI used the Parted Magic applicaiton on that disc and was able to copy all my files from the bad drive to the good, all 151GB. YAY!

Thanks for your help and suggestions guys, but I am really disappointed that I couldn't get Windows 7 to read the drive in the first place. I just don't get it.

Bare Foot Kid · 28 Mar 2011

Hello again.

Good to see you got the data back and thanks for the update.

What file system was originally on the drive?

It would be worth the trouble before you store anything on the drive again to use the step #7 clean all listed in this tutorial at the link below to over-write the entire HDD and create unallocated space that can then be formatted using Windows disk management.

Disk - Clean and Clean All with Diskpart Command