Need Help! How to recover my undetected external samsung HD??

[joseph21]

Hello,

Recently my Samsung HD has a lot of problems. When I use win explorer, the problem drive (G:) takes a while to load, and it shows that I have 100% free space (although I have already used up around 87% of it). I used the HD as my external Hard Drive in an enclosure for storage.

I'm trying to recover the data in Drive G: I tried using Active Partition Recovery v5 software, however, it wasn't able to fix it. But luckily it detected all the data is still there. However, it wasn't able to fix the tables/MBR or whatever it tried to fix. Furthermore, the software took a long time to load when my problem drive is connected to my laptop.

I should have around 13% free, meaning I used up almost 87% of my 90GB. But Win XP Computer Management Panel shows that I have 100% free space.   

I also tried other products as well such as R-Studio v3.6 but it shut down my Dell Laptop completely in the middle of the "scan" process.

In this, I would appreciate if anybody here could give me some advice to resolve this problem? Its kind of urgent. I don't know what's happening to my HD, I suspect that I have to use softwares that runs in DOS mode in order to repair my problem drive?

This problem might have been caused by not safely removing my Hardware most of the time.

Thanks.

[GX1_Man]

A hard drive is NEVER a safe place for storing the only copy of important files.

Not correctly unplugging a USB drive is asking begging for trouble.

If you use My Computer and right click on this drive and choose Properties, what does it say about the file type?

[joseph21]

When I choose properties it shows 100% free space. And the drive is not accessible. The file system is FAT32

[GX1_Man]

Without a proper file allocation table you may be stuck.

[joseph21]

Sad to hear about it.  Is there any way to fix this? Maybe Norton Disk Doctor will fix it? or should I move on to File Recovery softwares to recover my lost data?

[patio]

If you value your data then data recovery should be the priority...each time you fire up that drive your chances for successful recovery go down.

[joseph21]

Thanks, do you know any good software to help me recover them? The problem is over 80GB. I don't have any other HD having that much free space.

If I would take the risk to fix the damage FAT, what should I do to fix it w/o losing the data?

Thanks