[mphead]

On Windows XP, I have a third HDD (G drive), which used for backup and had not used in a long time. Properties for the drive shows the total storage to be 20GB, and 6 GB used (which is where my files are supposed to be), and 14 GB available. However, Windows Explorer shows not a single file. Analyze option in Defrag shows 600 files (which is correct). So the files are still there, but I cannot get to them. Storage Management in XP tells me that my C and D drives are NTFS, but G drive is FAT32. Why can't I access these files? What is going on here? Thanks.

 

[putasolution]

Does this drive still have an old operating system on it?

you might want to read this page

 

[Bob Cerelli]

Since it is FAT32, can you boot to DOS and still see the files.

Can you see them outside of the Windows Explorer, for example a cmd prompt.

Are the files hidden and Explorer not configured to show hidden files.

If it hasn't been used for a long time, likely the files are outdated. Can you reformat from within XP and access the drive.

 

[mphead]

To my knowledge, there is no operating system on this drive. Using the DOS prompt and DIR command yields no files or folders at all. Could this be an accidental partitioning problem since on this 20GB drive, there is only one Primary partition of 14GB (my files/folders which I can't see take up 6GB, as Defrag tells me). The files were not hidden when copied to this drive and Explorer is configured to read hidden files. Any ideas on what happened here or how to get to these files? Thanks.

 

[Elvandil]

In the absence of any better ideas, scan the drive with Restoration. It's the best file recovery tool I've used, free or otherwise. Click the "Others" menu and choose to scan all clusters. Or, you can specify what file-types to search for and move them to another drive before reformatting.

http://files.webattack.com/localdl834/REST2514.EXE