All my files just disappeared!

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live Hub Discussions
1

From one day to another, all movies, videos, photos and music disappeared.
Also, the PC shows that it is completely empty except for a folder and a Twonky file.
Did the TOC (Table Of Contents) just got damaged, corrupted or erased?
I contacted WD and they gave me these “solutions”:

  1. Press the reset button (didn’t work)
  2. Make it a downgrade (didn’t work)
  3. Bring it to a data recovery company (that costs a fortune and it should not be me who takes over)
    I tried connecting directly to a PC via a USB cable and it does not even detect it.
    Finally I opened it, I pulled the HDD and plugged it into the PC with a SATA adapter.
    The problem now is that Windows tells me to format it … is it formatted in a different way other than NTFS?
    My idea was to try to recover the lost or invisible files with Recuva, for example, but not having a known format, no program detects it.
    What the heck happened? How do I recover almost 1TB of data?
    Heeeeeeeeeeeeeelp!
1 Like
2

This doesn’t sound good. Hopefully someone will have a solution. If u get your files back see my back-up thread. E http://community.wdc.com/t5/WD-TV-Live-Hub-General/Back-up-system/m-p/328687#M16560

3

tianchi wrote:

Finally I opened it, I pulled the HDD and plugged it into the PC with a SATA adapter.
The problem now is that Windows tells me to format it … is it formatted in a different way other than NTFS?
My idea was to try to recover the lost or invisible files with Recuva, for example, but not having a known format, no program detects it.
What the heck happened? How do I recover almost 1TB of data?
Heeeeeeeeeeeeeelp!

This doesn’t look good - if you connect the Hubs disk directly to a PC you should see two partitions, I think formatted as NTFS. The Hub doesn’t use a special format.

Have you tried to use the WD diagnostics software to see if the disk has errors?

4

Thanks for your suggestions, everybody.

Here’s the thing… when the HDD was inside the Hub, I could see it from my PC and read its only file and folder (I used to have a lot of them).

Anyway, when I plugged it directly to my PC via USB SATA cable, a pop up message from Windows appeared asking me to format it and I said no.

Then, I executed the WD Data LifeGuard Diagnostics and the HDD appears as a USB drive with the model number, serial number, capacity and SMART status. They are all OK except for the last one. It says: not available.

The quick test completes succesfully. It took 10 minutes.

I’m running the extended test right now… but I don’t know whether to cancel it or not 'cause it’s going to last about 12 hours.

What if I formatted it? Will I lose everything and no recovery data program like Recuva will be able to help me in that case?

5

tianchi wrote:

Thanks for your suggestions, everybody.

Here’s the thing… when the HDD was inside the Hub, I could see it from my PC and read its only file and folder (I used to have a lot of them).

Anyway, when I plugged it directly to my PC via USB SATA cable, a pop up message from Windows appeared asking me to format it and I said no.

Then, I executed the WD Data LifeGuard Diagnostics and the HDD appears as a USB drive with the model number, serial number, capacity and SMART status. They are all OK except for the last one. It says: not available.

The quick test completes succesfully. It took 10 minutes.

I’m running the extended test right now… but I don’t know whether to cancel it or not 'cause it’s going to last about 12 hours.

What if I formatted it? Will I lose everything and no recovery data program like Recuva will be able to help me in that case?

The fact that the disk passed the WD Diagnostics probably means that the disk is okay. When I plugged my Hub disk into a PC with a USB cable it showed three partitions a 134 MB hidden partition, a 900 MB NTFS WDTVPriv partition and a 930 GB NTFS WDTVLiveHub partition. Windows didn’t ask to format my disk when I connected it to the PC. If the disk is okay but windows can’t read the disk, you can try a recovery software.

6

This is a real nightmare, bro.

There are no three partitions here…

Anyway, I did the Extended Test which took 12 hours and finally failed because of “Too many bad sectors”.

As no recovery data software detected it, the only option I had to try was the “Quick Erase” with the WD Diagnostics (the one that write zeros on the first and last sectors… some data would be erased, but the one in the “middle”, not).

I did that. I had no other choice. Then, the disk was totally undetected by Windows, and of course, the bunch of data recovery software I have.

Later, I plugged it back to the Hub and it asked me to format it immediately. Again, no choice. And that’s what I did…

At this point, all I wanted was the Hub to be working again.

Then, I connected the disk to the PC again and Windows detected it and asked me to format it… I did that too.

After that, I could finally get the Recuva to work… 15 hours later I had to cancel it because it freezed at 69%.

Anyway, I could recover some files (jpg, png and mp4) but no mkv (the ones I cared most).

I realized that recuva couldn’t read them, so I found another software that was supposed to do that task.

Six hours later, the so called program found 0 files.

What to do? There must be a more efficient software out there but… where is it?

I mean, a software that scans deep like Recuva but able to recognize mkv files as well.

Perhaps those files I want are too big to be recovered (5 to 15GB).

Thanks for your time, pal.

7

Just out of interest how long have you had your Hub? Sorry I can’t give you any advice about recovering your files, I have backups of all of my important stuff, so if something like this happens I just format the disk or trash the disk and copy my backup to another disk. I’ve never bothered to try and get the files back. If you do manage to get your files back, you definitely need to have a backup of the important stuff.

Personally I keep my files on a NAS with copies on my PC and USB disks. I know it seems a waste to have a 1Tb disk in the Hub and not use it, but personally I wouldn’t keep my only copy on the Hubs internal disk. When I bought the Hub I thought the internal disk would be useful, but I think now I would buy the new Live Streaming and add an external disk. As you’ve found out if you have problems with the Hubs internal disk you either have to try and get the whole Hub replaced or open the Hub, remove the disk and void your warranty. Sorry I can’t be of more help.

8

I bought my Hub about 5 months ago. I was very pleased in the beginning, but in the last month it began to freeze and restart by itself. Also, the menues became more and more slow.

I have never thought about making backups. Why should I? This device is not trustable enough?

I has the bigger HDD I have ever owned. As a matter or fact, I used it as a backup or storage device for some big files which are not even readable by the Hub.

The idea of buying an external HDD with 1TB or more just to make a backup of the Hub is insane for me.

This device is not perfect. I don’t like its standby mode and the always spinning disk, so I prefer to power it off.

Actually, when I press the power button for 5 secs to shut it down, it makes some awful noise… I don’t know…

That process is kinda chaotic, I guess.

Finally, after a long search and failed attempts, I have found some recovery program which seems to be working.

It has found a lot of files so far and I’m waiting for it to finish. Five hours to go… (more than 17 in total).

That is my last hope, I guess. I’ll keep you updated.

Greetings from Argentina.

See ya.

9

Any unusual noise from a HDD = trouble as does freezing Never ignore HDD warning signs sounds…& expect the worst = back up ie move data ASAP while you can…Please post the data recovery program your now using - reminds me of W98 days & Nortons Undelete to the rescue.

10

Hard disks are the most likely item to fail. It’s amazing that disks are as reliable as they are. The first time you have a hard disk crash and you don’t have a backup is the time that most people decide to start backing up. Up until recently the price of disk storage was dropping. I’m sure that in the near future disks will get bigger and prices will start dropping again. Personally, I would much rather have a backup and not have to go through what you are experiencing now.

Just my opinion.

11

OK. I’m writing just to let you know how this story ended…

After a whole week of non-stop action in front of the PC without even shutting it down, I finally gave up.

I tried more than a dozen of recovery software and they didn’t help me.

Just 2 of them kinda worked: Recuva and the other one I can’t remember right now.

Anyway, all I wanted was to recover my huge MKV files, a task which seems to be impossible for any recovery software as they don’t recognize such file type (they can “see” any other file, but not the one I wanted).

And I don’t think it’s a size issue 'cause Recuva could recover a 3GB AVI file, among others.

I contacted WD and all I got was obvious and simple answers or “solutions”.

It’s insane to have a backup of a backup.

I’ll never “Put My Life On It” again.

Shame on you, WD.

12

I hate to say it, but this is all on you brotha.  Hard drives are hard drives no matter how pretty of an enclosure they are in.  And hard drives WILL fail.  The WD Live is not a “backup”.  If you put any media on it, make sure you have a copy of it somewhere else. This goes for any storage media.  I buy hard drives in pairs.  One for everyday use and one to back that one up.  

Oh well, lesson learned I guess…I hope.

13

tianchi wrote:> It’s insane to have a backup of a backup.

It’s insane NOT to have a backup of important stuff. And it’s a good idea to have several backups in different places if the stuff is really important. Do you have a backup and you don’t see the point of making a backup of the backup? I don’t understand your comment of having a backup of a backup. You don’t seem to have any backup. If you do have a backup why have you spent a week trying to recover the files?

You might be able to blame WD for a disk crash, but you can’t blame WD for not having a backup of your data. Disks will fail. You can use this week of frustration as a valuable lesson. Or not.