Windows not saving files?

[CatherineL]

Can someone please tell me what this means? It didn't save the first few files I edited. It seems to be saving them now, but this message is still popping up. Please help!

[CatherineL]

I have figured out this is on my external hard drive, my only back up. It looks like my files are still on there, but I have no idea how to recover them. Any help is appreciated. I am desperate. I have googled how to recover files, I am just weary of messing with it and completely destroying it.

[Damien Symonds]

Is it truly a backup drive?  If so, that's excellent.  Just throw it away, buy a new external drive, backup the files from your internal drive again, and move on.

However, I fear it's not truly a backup drive?  Your desperation indicates that you have your only copy of some files on that drive?

http://www.damiensymonds.net/how-do-i-retrieve-lost-or-damaged-images.html

[Brian]

Looks like a new External Hard Drive is in your future. What make / model is this drive? How large is it?

 

[CatherineL]

Oh gosh, here I thought I responded to Damien's post last night and I never hit 'Submit Reply'.

 

Ok, I guess it's not a back up. When I upload my photos, they go directly to my external HD for lack of room on my desktop. They are now showing up when I go to start>external HD. So I am currently uploading them to an online storage program. It looks like they are still on the HD (obviously, they are, since I'm copying them) but when I click on the folders they would all say "this folder is empty".

[Brian]

It's really hard to say what's wrong with the drive. The worst thing you can do is try to "Fix It" by throwing all sorts of software recovery at it. That will do more harm than good. Unfortunately, extreme data recovery is not cheap. Like $1500 not cheap. Can you copy anything off that EHD or is it just showing up as empty folders?

[CatherineL]

Thankfully, I am able to copy files to an online storage program. Bridge wasn't recognizing the EHD. I have closed Bridge and now I am able to see them. So I am not sure if it was in fact the EHD or a problem with Bridge. I know I needed to get a backup system in place, and this is the motivation I needed. Do you have any recommendations for EHD's?

[Brian]

Believe it or not, I'd get this drive and reformat it for use with your computer. It takes about 5 Min to do. Yes, I know the HD says it's for the Xbox 1. It's a higher quality drive, has better transfer speeds and doesn't come with the stupid WD backup software that doesn't work.

[CatherineL]

Thank you so much for the recommendation. 

Excuse my ignorance, but what do you mean by "reformat it for use with your computer?"

[Brian]

Hard Drives really do not care what computer system they are attached to. That said, it needs to be prepped with the correct partition type / filesystem and be formatted so it can be used. You are used to purchasing Hard Drives that are pre-formatted for use with Windows, meaning you just plug them in and they work. Sometimes, you have to blow away with that setup and redo things so it will work with your computer. (Like if you were prepping a HD for use with a Mac.)  There is nothing you need to buy as it's built into the OS. It just takes about 5-10 min of prepping. Unless it's already reformatted for use with Windows. Since this is a HD that is meant to hook up to an Xbox One, there might be some configuration. It's not a big deal.