Windows appears to have wiped my HDD on driver install

[Mere44]

Just completed a new install of windows 7 and when I turned my HDD on to copy across backed up data (documents, excel files, addressbook etc) windows 7 is saying the drive is empty.

When the drive was turned on it came up with "new hardware found installing drivers" but nothing else so why is it saying its empty??

Our entire family photo and video history was also on here.

Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers
Mere

 

[Mellon Head]

Sorry you're having problems, but welcome.

Is this an external drive? USB? When you say "turn it on", I'm assuming it is some kind of external that has a power switch. Was it turned off during the Windows installation?

Have you tried looking for it in device manager? Sometimes, you need to reboot after new hardware is found. I have a USB drive that read empty the first time I plugged it in. Windows found the drivers, and I rebooted, and everything was fine.

I wish I could help more, but I need a little more detail, please.

 

[Mere44]

Hi thanks for the welcome.

Yes its a WD external HDD used purely for storage and has an on/off switch at the back.

It was turned off during the instal

The device shows up in windows without a problem it is just showing as having nothing but a few windows files on it. It is as if it has been wiped

Any help would be appreciated

 

[ikjadoon]

While you're figuring out what the problem is, don't copy files or do anything with the current files on the external drive.

In the chance they were wiped during the install, you can recover them still. But, the percentage of files that will be able to be recovered decreases with use of the drive.

Just a tip when I lost some files. But, they might not have been deleted.

Did the drive show up during the install? Like when it asked you where you wanted to install Windows? What files are on the drive now, by chance?

 

[Mere44]

We have disconnected the drive now and are not using it so that if the files have been deleted (or the drive formetted) then we have the best chance of recovering them.

The drive was turned off during the instal so it did not show up only the internal HDD did.

There are a number of windos files on the drive now, all sitting in a folder called "Windows".

For all intense purposes it looks like a newly formated drive.

I am beinging to think that it was formatted, we may need to run a data recovery tool.

Suggestions for the best ones?

 

[ikjadoon]

FreeUndelete is the one I used with relative success. Got about 60% of the files back, but I was constantly writing to the disk and back. Didn't figure that one out until after.

Use a program like WinDirStat to double-check it's empty.

Are there any drivers needed for the drive, specifically from the WD site?

 

[Mere44]

Thanks I will try that

 

[Mark Phelps]

Suggestions for the best ones?

In my experience, the GetDataBack series from Runtime Software did the best job of file and disk recovery. You can download a free trial to see how well it detects your deleted files and folders. You have to purchase it to be able to do the actual file/disk recovery.

 

[surfasb]

I have a hard time figuring out how a drive gets formatted during a driver install.

 

[ikjadoon]

I have a hard time figuring out how a drive gets formatted during a driver install.

I don't think it was a driver install; it was a new install of Windows.

 

[Fumz]

It's difficult to see how anything could have happened to the drive... the power was off. Surely there must be something else going on?

 

[ikjadoon]

Hmm....it doesn't make sense, you're right.

Can you try the drive in another computer, maybe one not running Windows 7?

And you didn't find any software at WD's site, did you?

 

[Mellon Head]

I just thought of something. I'm wondering if the drive has a compatibility issue with Win 7? I have a brand new Maxtor Black Armor USB drive that did the same thing right after I upgraded to Seven, but works fine on Vista and XP. I wonder if there's a driver or firmware update available? It's something to consider.

It's a WD, so maybe they've made something for it. They usually tend to be on the ball with drivers. Maxtor's website basically says "Oh well, it isn't supported. Buy a new drive." Sure, but it won't be a Maxtor next time.

 

[HMonk]

Do I understand correctly: you have two HDDs, one internal and one external. You installed Windows to the internal while the external was off and you are suggesting that the external, while off, was wiped while Windows installed on the internal - do I have this correctly stated?

If so, I dare say your scenario is impossible.

Monk