Can my data be saved before a format on a hard drive?

[SagreeLess]

Hi Guys
I am no expert, so I really need your expertise on this one.
After purchasing a hard drive (internal) for my external media player from Western Digital, I was unable to find my drive on My Computer.
I went through Disk Management and formatted the drive and Viola!!!
I downloaded a software from Western Digital- Acronis thinking I could make my work easy for me, by transferring my old data from the 500 GB drive to the new 2 TB NAS Hard drive.
After spending a day, getting 100 GB of data to be transferred, I am now back to square one. Cannot access the data on My Computer, No drive, no disk showing up. I see it under Disk Management. I also know the data transferred over, as I connected the player to my TV, and the files showed up.
My concern, is that I need to access it on my PC so that I can make a folder system, for the various data I have.

Is there a way of getting this data, without losing it if I do the format again.
I am under the impression that it has to do with the GPT and MBR when formatting was done, and then changed with using Acronis

Please HELP!

 

[sdowney717]

I cloned my entire windows 7 drive using macrium reflex free
Macrium Reflect FREE Edition - Information and download

Was easy and it boots fine afterwards.

I am not sure what your trying to do. just copy a data folder to the new drive, but then the drive is no longer visible in explorer? Are you leaving this drive in the PC?

If you have a cloned bootable copy, might be good in case your one drive goes bad, then boot from the other.

 

[Golden]

Please follow these steps:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/274797-disk-management-post-screen-capture-image.html

 

[essenbe]

As Golden suggests, It would be helpful to see Disk Management, but if you have an external or space on an internal drive, Microsoft syncToy will back up your data on a 1-1 basis. In other words it will be an exact copy and not an image. Just create a 'folder pair' with what you want to back up on the left and where you want it to be copied to on the right, set it to echo, give it a name and press start. When finished, there will be an exact duplicate on the destination drive or folder you listed as the destination.

 

[SagreeLess]

Attached pics of my problem

Ok, here goes. Thanks for the replies.
My issue is this. My drive I am talking about is not my OS.
I have bought a bigger drive to hold all my photos, movies, music etc.
I have an external Media Player which I connect to the TV and on occasion to my Laptop, where I can play movies and so on.
The Hard Drive is connected into the player, which can be connected the Laptop via USB. When connecting same to TV, it needs a HDMI cable.
After trying to transfer the data from the small drive to the 2 TB size drive, I am now unable to see the Player/with the new drive on my Computer. See picture attached.

 

[SagreeLess]

So, as u guys can see, I have nothing on my Computer to show me that I have a WD 2 TB drive/media player connected via USB. How do I sync, cos I am unable to make a new folder pair. If there is any other way to find this data, Please let me know, then I will reformat the drive, and do the transfer with the SyncToy, which looks like a cool program
Before using the Acronis software to clone the disk, I did see this same drive/media player in My Computer

 

[sdowney717]

After trying to transfer the data from the small drive to the 2 TB size drive, I am now unable to see the Player/with the new drive on my Computer. See picture attached.

is the drive still visible in disk management formatted as NTFS while part of the external media player device?

Is the drive not visible in Windows explorer even though formatted as NTFS?
Your trying to view the drive contents while the drive is physically part of the media player device? and connected to the PC by a usb cable?

is the external media player device a box with a hard drive in it used as an external drive with a usb 2.0 interface cable?

 

[sdowney717]

Before using the Acronis software to clone the disk, I did see this same drive/media player in My Computer

You did not clone the whole disk using Acronis, just copied some files and folders?

I am not sure why you need Acronis at all.

Why not just
remove the partition
repartiton
copy the folders using windows explorer
Then it will work in explorer.

 

[SagreeLess]

SDowney. The first part of your understanding is correct. All yes to those questions.
Here's the hard part My husband saved some movies onto the new drive, which we have no copy of. And that is correct about copying only some files and folders.
I am afraid that when I repartition, I may lose all the contents of that drive.
and due to the size of the old drive, which consists of nearly 500 GB of data, and I might add, that every time u need to access these drives, one needs to be removed and replaced with the other, so we tried saving some files/folders onto a small USB drive, and transferred in this fashion.
As I said, I am not an expert on computers, LOL. So that was why I thought Acronis could do the job

 

[sdowney717]

I am afraid that when I repartition, I may lose all the contents of that drive

Yes you will if you do that.

You can try this, download the ubuntu desktop.
Download Ubuntu | Ubuntu
you can burn it to a CD disk
You can run it as a liveCD, or even make a liveUSB thumb drive. You are then running it as a bootable drive which wont touch your hard drives at all.
Boot ubuntu, (will be slow to boot up as its on a cd or liveusb) and see if it can see those files on the extrenal drive.
Ubuntu CAN read NTFS partitions, if so then you can copy them back onto some other drive, then your ok.

For help you can ask questions there.
Ubuntu Forums

Computers are fun, so think how much more you can learn.

 

[SagreeLess]

Ok, cool, I will give it a try!
Tomorrow, another day, so I can start early, and go through the process.
And yes, Computers are much fun, and I love to learn all the time

TY Sdowney, I hope to have some news tomorrow!

 

[essenbe]

Would this be easier? http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/93347-copy-paste-windows-recovery-console.html

 

[SagreeLess]

Hello SDowney
I tried to download the Ubuntu onto a CD. But, Nothing nothing!!! The laptop will not boot from the CD. I have also gone over the Ubuntu forums, seems the disc did not burn correctly! Well, it only happens cos I am no expert on this
But TY for this resource.

 

[sdowney717]

Alternatively, you can create a Live USB drive with this program in windows, so no need to burn
http://www.ubuntu.com/download/help/create-a-usb-stick-on-windows
This might work better
You must be able to boot from a USB hard drive device for this to work.
Some PC you hit a key, some use bios settings. Some of the settings might be tricky.
Usually newer system, you can hit a function key to select a boot device.


Burner guide, you can download a free burner.
Yeah I know its a pain sometimes.
I usually use CDRW or DVDRW for burns.
Must be BIG enough to fit the whole install onto the disc.


https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BurningIsoHowto

also verify the download checksum

highly recommended that you verify the md5 sum

 

[Britton30]

Try giving the NAS drive a drive letter from Disk Management. Right click the used space and you will see the option, follow the prompts.