Iomega External Hard Drive Access

It looks to me like some of the code has been corrupted, it seems to have stopped short of fully loading...

....To recover corrupted data from files on a hard drive, you can use dedicated data recovery software like Recuva or Recover My Files, which scan your hard drive for damaged files and attempt to restore them, or if the damage is severe, consider using a professional data recovery service for physically damaged drives; you can also try running a disk check using the "chkdsk" command in your operating system to potentially repair minor file system corruption. ....

https://community.wd.com/t/how-can-i-recover-data-from-a-corrupted-external-hard-drive-without-losing-any-files/292576/3

Thanks, I tried your suggestion and was able to recover some of the files, other files, I was able to recover the data, but not the file name, I have open the file to see it. Other files, I was not able to open it.

I have 3 lap tops and 2 desk tops. One lap top I use it’s an Alienware, that’s my work lap top, the other I just found the charger for it. The other laptop that would have the data I need. can’t find it, it’s stored somewhere and that’s 20 years old…

As far as the desk top, those are pushing 30 years old…

It could also be the difference in the computer version of the operating system used to operate the harddrive?.

No, the current computer is about 3 years old. Until this past week, I’ve accessed it a number of time with no problem.

i did get a chance to put an older computer on it.

The software driver for the hard drive I believe also need to match the OS, especially if it was transferred from computers that has different OS version..

You may need to use a utility software like mini tool that can read, to act as a mediator and debug the missing or hidden data which I think were burned into the hard drive like in the form of a machine language..

that possible, and I did think of it. I did look at other software, but I only looked, I didn’t do much research… the thing that concerns me, with the suggestion SE gave, was that it’s a Chinese company that developed it…

I’ll throw this around…

It’s just that when using a different operating system, that once worked and no longer works. Maybe the best term is to label it as unstable with the OS I’m currently using.

now the external hard drive because of its age I believe it’s a HHD (hard drive) and not a solid state hard drive (SSD).

but I’ll find out more when I get back and try an older computer…

Maybe the file system lost the extended attributes? With Windows the long file name is stored in extended attributes.

To me, it looks like the computer you are using to read the drive does not have apps associated with the files (bad icons) and/or the computer uses an incompatible filing protocol. Fifteen years is a long time in the computer field.

I used it before, but I am going to get one of my older laptop and try it.

I believe your drive is formatted with FAT32. Any OS can read it and fix it.

You may have a bad USB interface that is dropping bits randomly making it hard for the computer to read properly.

I would open the case up and find out what the drive interface is. For instance is it SATA. Hopefully it is as you can purchase a SATA drive enclosure with a new USB interface and install the old drive into that. Then hook it up to your current computer and run chkdsk command to repair the file system on it.

When you lose extended attributes on a file name they are lost. Windows does not have a way to recover them. My brother experienced that. They captured information using serial numbers as file names. System crashed. They could recover the data but he long file names were gone. They had to manually open each file and rename. Switched OS after that little episode.