Problem restoring files in Windows Backup

[Vincenzo]

The hard drive failed on my friend's Win 7 laptop. I replaced the hard drive, now I am in the process of recovering documents that he had backed up on an external hard drive. He was using Windows Backup.
When I start the application in restore mode and direct it to the external hard drive, it shows a backup done on Jan 2. But when I browse through the backup folders using Windows Backup, it does not show any of his recent files. I went ahead and restored the folders, but the most recent files in the restored user folders are only from mid November. Any ideas what I might to do the see if the missing files were in fact backed up, or where they might be?
Thanks

 

[Brink]

Hello Vincenzo,

It doesn't sound good, but you might see if the files are still there by using the tutorial below to manually extract files from a backup. You don't have to manually extract the files, but just go as far as looking at the files in the backup to see what's there.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/174270-backup-manually-extract-files-vista-windows-7-a.html

 

[Vincenzo]

Thanks, Brink. That was helpful in that it allowed us to see what was backed up. Unfortunately, for some reason there is lots of backed up data in AppData and some other system folders, but the user folders only appear in one of the zip files, and there is only 1 file in there. It appears that either the backup malfunctioned or was interrupted somehow. Unless there could be another reason why we are not seeing the user folders. Thanks

 

[Brink]

You might check to see if there is another dated Backup Set or Backup Files folder in there that may contain them.

 

[Vincenzo]

That is the only backup folder on the external hard drive.

Thanks

 

[Brink]

It looks like they never got backed up then.

 

[Vincenzo]

That's what it seems like. Have you heard of failures like this before, or is this a rare case? Thanks

 

[Brink]

Usually this only happens if the backup was never created, got deleted, or the folder the files were in was not included in the backup.

 

[whs]

Depending on the kind of problem you had with the disk, you may still be able to recover data from there. E.g. if the MFT was corrupted, Recuva can recover the data. And there are other possibilities for other problems. All you need is an external disk enclosure (or a port in a desktop) and try from there.

 

[Vincenzo]

I've tried quite a bit with the old disk. It spins, but is not recognized either in the computer or in an enclosure. I've tried about about 6 differents utilities - hirons boot disk, several utilities from the Falcon 4 disk, Partition Wizard recovery function. Also tried the freezer trick. I'm open to ideas if anyone has any.
I've not tried Recuva, but that requires that an OS can see the disk first, doesn't it?

 

[whs]

I've not tried Recuva, but that requires that an OS can see the disk first, doesn't it?

That is correct. The thing seems to be really dead, dead.