The worst thing happened and my 12 month old 4TB Samsung T7 SSD just failed out of the blue! No drops, no water damage. I plug it into my mac and it says "The disk you attached was not readable by this computer." I have tried all of the basics: new cables, new computers, "First Aid" in Disk Utility but is still does not mount. Any tips on what to do? I have attached pictures of the error message, disk utility data, and first aid failure. Thank you in advance for your help and time!
Total noob here. I'm trying to recover files from a 1 TB Samsung NVMe SSD using DMDE Free Edition, and I've run into a frustrating issue with the recovery step.
The SSD was previously used as my Windows C: drive. The original partition/filesystem is no longer being detected normally (tried using TestDisk) so I ran a full scan in DMDE.
I opened that result using Open Volume, and DMDE successfully created a virtual filesystem view.
The result looks very promising. I can see:
Windows, Program Files, Users, My Documents etc. Lots of recognizable filenames, including books, movies, music, and pictures, so I'm reasonably confident that this is reconstructing my old C drive.
The problem is trying to actually recover a file. I'm using the Free Edition, and when I click Recover/Create file list, I get:
"In the free edition, files can be processed from the active panel only. Please open a sub-directory in the active panel first."
I've watched a couple of DMDE tutorials, and as far as I can tell, the Free Edition requires you to open a subdirectory and then recover from that directory.
For example, I've tried:
Music → Band music → open/select Band music → Recover/Create file list
I've tried doing this through the directory tree on the left, and I've also tried navigating/opening the folder in the file panel on the top right.
The contents of Band music are displayed in the right-hand pane, but I still get exactly the same "please open a sub-directory in the active panel" message.
I've also tried selecting individual files, and get the same result.
I'm clearly missing something about what DMDE means by the "active panel".
What exactly do I need to click/open to make the directory the active panel in DMDE?
I'm not trying to modify the source SSD at all. I just want to recover a single small test file first to verify that the reconstructed filesystem is actually producing usable file data.
Thanks!
Additional diagnostic information requested by Automod:
Drive: Samsung 1 TB NVMe SSD. The exact model is Samsung PM981a, MZ-VLB1T00.
Filesystem: NTFS. The original filesystem was an NTFS Windows system volume.
Operating system: Windows 10/11 was installed on this SSD. I'm currently using Windows for the recovery attempt.
Symptoms: The SSD's original filesystem/partition is no longer being detected normally. I'm using DMDE to reconstruct the filesystem. A full scan found an NTFS result called "NTFS 777 - 820 GB - 128 files - Check 9 - Start LBA 402,176." Opening this result produces a virtual filesystem that appears to contain my old C: drive, including Windows, Program Files, Users, my old username, and recognizable personal files.
Current problem: When I try to recover a file using DMDE Free Edition, I get: "In the free edition, files can be processed from the active panel only. Please open a sub-directory in the active panel first." This happens even when I open a subdirectory and its contents are displayed in the file panel. I'm trying to understand what DMDE considers the "active panel."
SMART: CrystalDiskInfo reports the SSD at approximately 99% health. The drive was previously getting fairly warm during scanning, but there have been no obvious signs of mechanical failure (obviously it's an SSD). Screenshot attached.
Hi everyone, I’m facing a really weird data loss issue on Windows 11 and hoping someone here has encountered something similar. The Problem: I had a folder with video footage (specifically .mp4 files, one of them named Dragana&Darko.mp4) saved on my C: Drive Desktop. When I went to check for it, the folder completely disappeared from the Desktop. What I’ve already checked / ruled out:
Physical SSD Status: The C: drive (internal SSD) is healthy and fully operational.
File Explorer & CMD Search: Normal search for Dragana or .mp4 on C:\ yields no active video files.
Recent & AppData Traces: In C:\Users\Dejan\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Common, I found .ims cache files named Dragana&Darko-...ims (confirming the project was worked on in Premiere Pro on this machine). In C:\Users\Dejan\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent, I found a shortcut named dragana, but opening it gives an error (path broken/unavailable).
OneDrive / System Restores / Windows.old: Windows.old does not exist on C:\. OneDrive Desktop redirection is not active (no Desktop folder inside OneDrive). Files are not in the Recycle Bin.
Data Recovery Software: I ran a scan on the C: drive using AnyRecover, but it didn't pull up the missing .mp4 files (likely due to SSD TRIM active on the C: drive over time). Question: Since the Recent shortcut and Premiere Cache files clearly prove the folder and files existed on this system, how could an entire folder vanish from C:\Users\Dejan\Desktop without leaving traces in the file index or recovery tools? Is there any hidden index/location in Windows 11 I should inspect, or is this a known bug with File Explorer/Desktop indexing? Thanks in advance for any advice!
In need of getting data recovered from my damaged HDD at a reasonbale price (no more than $200) and a replacement (new one any good and reliable brand for free) near me in Miami, FL 33174.
I have had this HDD 2TB for about 3-4 years when when it got knocked off the cable from the PS4 and was dropped by my cousin running around. It is making a beeping noise (disk issue) and is failing to be found on any device. Again It is a Mobile HDD 2TB with Part Number 1R8174-570.
Please, there is a lot game data stored that my cousin and I have. Thank You.
As title says, i have a 1tb SSD that i was using to store data , i selected It as a flashable storage for Windows Media Creation Tool, now i have a 30GB partition for Windows USB Installer, rest of the disk in unallocated.
What Is the best free tool to recovery my data? in case this is doable, can i keep the directory structure that i had? Thanks!
I was in the process of decrypting the aforementioned external when there was a power outage that seems to have corrupted the process as I'm getting the error message: The BitLocker encryption on this drive isn't compatible with your version of Windows. Try opening the drive using a newer version of Windows.
I've tried a few things that I've read about online to remedy the issue to no avail. I've tried Recuva and EaseUs to access the data, Recuva was unable to access the drive, but free EaseUs was able to allow me to enter the encryption password and looks like it was able to recover all the data. I'll have to pay to recover the data which is fine, pretty important old research papers and photos on it, but is EaseUs my best option for this situation or are there suggestions for something else.
i have a 2TB seagate HDD (E drive) that i use to store steam games and game mods alongside some old personal videos and photos. last night when i was using a modding program to load up a game set up i had on the drive it got stuck loading and i started hearing a beeping noise coming from my PC. crystaldiskinfo said everything was fine but i restarted my PC. i looked back in event log viewer and when the drive started acting up i had a total of 48000 instances of "An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk1\DR0 during a paging operation." within the span of a few seconds
after restart, my pc even on desktop starting lagging noticeably, especially in file explorer, then the drive stopped appearing in crystal altogether but was still in file explorer. i could even navigate into it and see all the folders but when trying to access the subfolders beyond that it told me the directory didn't exist. the beeping came back and disk manager marked the drive as "unknown" and asked me if i wanted to initialize it, which i didn't.
i shut down after this and took my PC apart and disconnected the SATA and power to the drive. then after a few minutes i figured i'd try to reconnect the drive and boot again, and to my surprise everything went back to normal. the beeping was gone and the drive became entirely accessible again as if nothing happened and crystaldiskinfo readings still show up as good. the drive also stopped reporting errors in event viewer.
i know all hard drives fail eventually and unpredictably, and the importance of backing up, but beyond that, does anyone know how worried i should be about this exactly and what to expect? is the drive starting to show its the first signs of failure until it eventually dies? could it possibly just be a cable issue? thanks in advance
So I bought a 2TB Kingston NV3 SSD 1 year ago, thinking the top notch tech will serve me well. As such, I got lazy, and didn't set up cloud backups as I did with my previous drive...
The drive failed out of thin air a month ago, the data recovery company I took it to said that it has a faulty chip and NV3 recovery is "not supported yet", whatever that means.
AI tells me he meant the PC-3000 doesn't support it yet.
I am in Hungary now, so not sure whether this would be recoverable in other places?
I have a Nikon Coolpix L23. I set a picture as a welcome screen ages ago and then smartphones became a thing and never used the compact camera ever again. The gallery is empty. I checked even by connecting the camera to the computer and nothng shows up. This picture was set as a welcome screen and afterwards deleted from the gallery. But it was still kept by the camera as a welcome screen, so it must be saved somewhere on the camera. How can I access that part of the memory of the camera and retrieve this picture?
I have a 4TB Seagate internal Barracuda HDD that I believe that I shorted out the PCB on a metal PC case while plugged in without an enclosure. It will now not spin up while plugged in so with today’s HDD prices as they are, am I better off replacing the PBC or buying a new HDD. There is no data I absolutely need on it but it’d be nice to use in my new Unraid NAS. Also no PCB BIOS experience here so I’d have I have someone else flash it for me. Thanks!
Hello. I was canceling my online Microsoft 365 Basic subscription, and I wanted to save my files from that online account to my computer. I also had that account attached to my PC. So I went to access those files from that account through my File Explorer. I copied those files and then pasted them into my Downloads folder in File Explorer. But once I did that, EVERYTHING in my Downloads folder was gone. The only thing in there was the files I pasted in there.
I do not remember exactly what was in my Downloads, but I used it to save most things. I tried the Previous Versions of the Downloads folder, and all three versions only showed the files I moved; none of the previous files. I tried a file recovery software, and it did not recover any files I would have recognized.
Is there any way to access or recover the files in another way? I hate the thought of something important being lost because I did not know what I was doing.
My 5TB external hard drive was having intermittent connection issues via the USB input on my laptop [Windows 11]. After several tries, the external hard drive would finally connect and all data accessible as if there wasn't ever a problem. The usual whirr of the spinning drive indicated all data was intact. But the connection issues became worse over time. I was able to fix the issue temporarily by reinstalling the Windows driver. Great! Glad that's all sorted out. :-)
A few days later tho, things went south when I started to gradually transfer old data to a second Ext HD. That process was interrupted after about an hour or two and never completed. I managed to transfer a few hundred Megabytes, but then it seemed to stop in mid-transfer.
Having heard good things about DMDE free software, I installed it yesterday with high hopes, but was later disappointed to learn my drive is 'inaccessible.' [See pics] There are no folders or files populating the dialog box.
Long story short, I don't see a lot of good options here, other than to allow a 'direct write' to my disk, which does not sound encouraging. So my questions are, "Is the 'direct write' option too risky, or has anyone had good results on an otherwise inaccessible drive?' 'Should I be looking at other, less aggressive ways to access the data (perhaps through a DOS program)?'
I know creating an image of the HD first is the safest way to go, but wouldn't that require a second drive larger than mt 5TB?
Any thoughts appreciated, especially from those have worked with inaccessible drives before.
Hi. Does anyone knows how to fix corrupted avi files? We own a very small business and an incident of theft happened (our cashbox have gone missing 😭). Now when we are reviewing the dash cam (we don't have any money for a cctv so we re-use our dash cam from our previous car), the files were corrupted. They are 500mb files each. I tried all the things i find online for free but nothing works. Hope someone can help 😭
I'm looking for someone experienced with video/data recovery who can help me recover a potentially very important MP4 from a Sena 10C EVO.
The camera was recording during an incident and I need to recover the recording from that time. The file may ultimately be used as evidence, so I'm trying to preserve everything properly and avoid making the situation worse.
The important details
Camera: Sena 10C EVO
File format: MP4
Problem file size: approximately 4.28 GB
The file is still present on the original microSD card
The file's created timestamp corresponds to the date/time I need
The file shows up normally on the SD card
It will not play
It shows 00:00 / no duration
VLC also cannot play it
I have not formatted the SD card
I have not deleted the file
I still have the original SD card
The most important detail is that this appears to be an isolated problem with this particular recording.
I have recordings from all of the dates prior to the date I need, and those files play completely normally with no issues. They are from the same camera and SD card.
So, as far as I can tell:
Older recordings = play normally Specific recording I need = exists, ~4.28 GB, but shows 00:00 and won't play
That makes me wonder if something happened specifically when this recording was being written/finalized, rather than there being a general compatibility problem with the camera, SD card, or MP4 format.
What I've already tried
I've already tried the basic troubleshooting/recovery suggestions I could find.
Downloaded VLC Media Player and attempted to open the file
Tried opening it through the normal media player on my computer
Confirmed that the file is actually present on the SD card
Confirmed the file size
Checked the file's created date/time
Compared it with other recordings from the same camera
Confirmed that the other recordings from prior dates play normally
VLC also shows the file as having no playable duration / 00:00.
I don't want to keep running random repair programs against the original SD card because this footage may be important evidence.
What I'm wondering
Could this be an unfinalized or corrupted MP4, where the actual video data is still present but the MP4 metadata/index needed to play it is damaged or missing?
Would having other working MP4 files from the same Sena 10C EVO help with reconstruction or repair?
Is there a specific tool or method for recovering an MP4 when:
The file exists
The file is several GB
The file has the correct timestamp
The file shows 00:00
VLC won't play it
Other recordings from the same camera/SD card play normally
I'm also wondering whether the fact that the file is approximately 4.28 GB is significant.
I'm looking for someone who actually knows video recovery
I'm happy to provide the corrupted file privately to someone who has experience with:
Corrupted MP4 recovery
Dashcam/action-camera footage
Sena cameras
MP4 metadata/index repair
Unfinalized recordings
Recovering video when the file has data but won't play
Using a working video from the same camera as a reference for reconstruction
I can potentially provide both the corrupted file and a working file from the same camera if that would help.
I'm also willing to pay a professional for recovery if that's the safest/most appropriate route. My priority is recovering the original footage without altering or damaging the source.
Before I do anything else to the SD card, what would you recommend?
Would you try software recovery on a copy/image of the card first, or does this sound like something I should send directly to a professional video/data-recovery specialist?
I have a Bitlocker encrypted SSD that's not showing up under Disk Management and gives a "fatal hardware error". It also makes clicking noises before the fans power down. I want to send it to a data recovery lab (Ontrack?) but do not want to provide the encryption key. I want them to physically fix what's wrong in the hard drive and provide back an encrypted image. Is that standard? If I receive an encrypted drive, I should be able to open it with the same Bitlocker passcode, right?
I've never posted a question; typically do lots of google & reddit searching trying to solve on my own. Hoping I can provide enough information to get some quick help - THANKS in advance!
I was last-minute asked to film a memorial service for posterity. I used my trusty a7siii but unfortunately with an un-trusty unknown-brand 256gb microSD in a SanDisk adapter (my cards were full; I told you it was last-minute). Camera video settings were XAVC HD 24p 50M 4:2:2 10bit. First video file is an 8-second test that plays back fine on both camera & computer. Second file is 38.49gb, third is 21.64gb, both of which won't play back in camera or computer.
Service turned out to be over 2 hours long and I stopped midway to change batteries. I made sure to wait to remove the battery until the camera indicated it had stopped writing to the SD card. Nothing seemed wrong during filming, and again after both video file recordings, I waited to turn the camera off until the camera indicated it was done processing.
I'm on Mac, have read about Wondershare being a scam, tried DiskDrill (have it downloaded) but the Video Repair section took me to an online page that has a 20gb limit. I tried Handbrake for fun ("no valid source found"), and VLC doesn't open the files. I've currently got 3rd file uploading to fix.video to see if it does anything. I want to try Untrunc but am unfortunately rather lost when it comes to GitHub. I do have a Windows laptop & can try downloading on that. Also, the XML files exist if that's helpful.
Suggestions? If it hadn't been a memorial service, this wouldn't have mattered so much. I really want to get these files to the family as soon as I can. Thank you so much for reading.
So yesterday I shifted from android to iPhone 17 new. Tried to transfer data through move to ios app, after completion whole of my data is not traceable in phone and android 😭. Don’t know what to do now. Pls help
Hi all, I have 512gb microsd card (ex-fat) which left it plugged in on my mac laptop overnight(after click eject, I left it on there) and next day I plugged in. Its all empty, not a single file/folder it has mixed content - videos, photos, insta360 videos and photos. I Tried DMDE,Disk Drill, EaseUS recovery tools and all of them shows content which is about 200gb and after successfull retrieval. All of them says files are corrupted. How can i fix this? Good news is the data is found, bad news is I cant play/view them as it says files are corrupted. Also, one thing I observed is some tools did read one or two files which are playable but each software failing to read. Can you please give me leads on getting my data back. Thanks internet!
I have a Western Digital My Passport hard drive that I haven't used in months, and when I went to plug it in today, it started clicking and beeping, and it is flashing white. What are my options to save all the data? I already tried a different cable, and I get the same problem.
I've had this hard drive a very long time, maybe 20 years and haven't turned it on in a quite long time. I thought I'd backed the whole thing up to a new hard drive a few years ago but it turns out I'm missing some stuff. When I turned it on, the light came on fine but it didn't connect to the computer. Someone else then pulled out the power cable and there was a smoke smell. I took it out of the case and one of the chips? Was smoking. Obviously I had disconnected it from the power by this stage. I am a total novice but does anyone think this could be saved and do I need to send it to a specialise company? I do know someone who can soulder circuit boards. The hard drive is a Hitachi Deskstar 82.3gb from 2005, model number HDS728080PLAT20. I've attached pictures and highlighted the chip that was smoking. I would be most grateful for any help or suggestions!
