# Solved: External Hard Drive Error and Lost Folders, Mac



## CatTrina620 (Aug 17, 2012)

Hi, I'm using a 2009 MacBook Pro running OS X 10.7.4

Yesterday my external hard drive (LaCie 1TB), stopped showing one of the two partitions (it was partitioned for use on two computers, both formatted to MS DOS FAT). In the one partition it was showing, when I opened it, not all the folders were there. I tried change the USB cord, and using a different USB plug on my computer. The folders take a long time to show up, and even then there are some missing, and one entire half of the drive isn't showing up at all. 

As of this morning, when I plug in the drive it's nowt showing this message "Mac OS X can't repair the disk TREV (this is the name of one partition of the external HD) You can still open or copy files on the disk but you can't save changes to files on the disk. Back up the disk and reformat it as soon as you can." I was able to drag and copy some of the files onto my desktop, but there are still some folders not showing up on the external hard drive. Some of the folders now missing WERE showing up yesterday, and some of the folders that are showing up today were missing yesterday. In particular one of the folders that is missing and that's very important was only filled with Word documents. How can I find these missing folders?? And why did the hard drive suddenly stop working and need reformatting??


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## Headrush (Feb 9, 2005)

This could be file directory issue (software), but it could also a failing hard drive.
(Age of drive doesn't really matter, it can happen to any drive)

Best thing you can do *before* trying to recover any files is get another HD and try to clone the disk.

If the drive is indeed failing, it is possible you might not recover some files and as you try the drive becomes worse.
You're best option for trying to repair and/or recovering files is likely going to be Windows based programs because of the format of the hard drive.

A reformat won't necessarily fix the program either if the drive is failing. 
The fact is hard drives fail, and it's random to when it can happen.
The old saying is "there are people who backup, and then there are people who haven't had a hard drive failure, yet!"


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## tompatrick (Apr 19, 2010)

Headrush said:


> Best thing you can do *before* trying to recover any files is get another HD and try to clone the disk.


In the above case, the hdd seems to be acting unusually and playing hide and seek with the files and folders. So ,its not sure whether the cloned copy will be having folders which were hidden in the source drive.



CatTrina620 said:


> How can I find these missing folders??


Run a demo version of a data recovery software and let it scan your external hard drive. Once the scan finishes look out for the recoverable files and folders. If the recovery software shows all your hidden files and folders then you can recover them easily.


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## Headrush (Feb 9, 2005)

tompatrick said:


> In the above case, the hdd seems to be acting unusually and playing hide and seek with the files and folders. So ,its not sure whether the cloned copy will be having folders which were hidden in the source drive.


If you do a proper "clone", not a file copy, the duplicate is made at the block level, not the file level.
Usually if the file structure is random and constantly appearing and disappearing, the problem is more than a file allocation table corruption and getting data off as soon should be the first goal.



tompatrick said:


> Run a demo version of a data recovery software and let it scan your external hard drive. Once the scan finishes look out for the recoverable files and folders. If the recovery software shows all your hidden files and folders then you can recover them easily.


This is all assuming that the problem lies with a corrupt file allocation table.
Hopefully using data recovery software works and it is only file table corruption issues, but if it's not, and the files are important, hopefully you don't miss your one opportunity to get them by playing with the drive.

P.S. Data recovery can be very slow and taxing on the HD.


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## davidfincher (Sep 24, 2012)

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*Download* the utility here!


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