Files dissappearing

Hi, my external drive is getting slower and files are suddenly dissappearing.
Does this mean my drive dieing? Its a western digital 250 gb usb 2.0 external drive.

Is it possible to recover the lost files. Any free programs to do a recovery?
Thanks!

 

The drive may be dying, best if you back everything on it, then run a scandisk to check for corruption, etc.

To recover lost files, there are some programs, but that is still a small chance of recovery.

 

I second everything Cori said.

I'd like to add that if it does die, but still spins up, the drive could probably be professionally recovered. I have a friend who does this as a living, as long as it spins you don't need a clean room, so it won't cost thousands, but it probably will be $50-300. If the data's important, it's worth it though.

 

Yes only if it is worth it. If it is just some saved game files that took you forever to get to some certain stat or attribute, I would let it go.

 

I noticed that thing on two ocassions in my life, and used all possible tools for recovery (commercial) and couldn't find a trace of it! I was completely hopeless. And disk was external, and works without any problems ever since. I don't know what causes it, but I found many reports on that issue. Sometimes a few files disappear at the same time. Movies, mp3, multimedia files mostly.

Try free recovery tool called freeundelete. See if it works.

Hope it helps,

Ivan

 

thanks guys. I have a whole bunch of mp3s, pictures.