Learn why Seagate external hard drive files disappeared and find effective methods of how to fix files not showing up in external hard drive, such as Seagate, Samsung, Kingston, SanDisk, etc.
“Hello, I have a problem with my Seagate external hard drive. I saved some school documents on my drive. When I got to the school computer to copy my home task, I found that the Files in Seagate external hard drive not visible! What happened to my Seagate external hard drive? How can I deal with that?”
This is one of the cases that Seagate external hard drive files disappeared suddenly.
External hard drive is a portable storage device that can be attached to a computer via USB, SATA, or Firewire. It is often used to back up computers or used as a data transmission medium. Using external hard drive has many advantages, for example, it can avoid the network requirement that it does not exist the uploading and downloading process and time. Thus, many users would like to backup important data to external hard drive. However, for many causes, you may encounter many problems such as “external hard drive not shown in My Computer”, “files not shown in external hard drive”, etc, which will make you very upset.
When your Seagate external hard drive files disappeared, do not write any new data into the external hard drive. Because the new data will overwrite the data on the hard drive. You need to find why the files not showing up, and how to fix it first. The Seagate external hard drive files disappeared may be caused by those following reasons:
1. The files are hidden. Sometimes, the files not showing up in Seagate, Samsung, Kingston, SanDisk, etc are only because they are just hidden, not showing to us.
2. The file system errors. The files in Seagate external hard drive not visible may be caused by the file system is corrupted or it doesn’t contain a recognized file system.
3. The mirror image in memory is damaged. If the mirror image in memory is damaged, the operating system may not respond a timely refresh.
4. “CheckedValue” is suffering from virus infection.
As we have knew the causes of files in Seagate external hard drive not showing up, we can try to do something to fix it.
If Seagate external hard drive files disappeared is caused by the files are hidden, then you need to unhide them. The following steps could help you to finish the task.
Step 1. Check whether the files are endowed with system property: run "Control folders" (or go to Appearance and Personalization under Control Panel).
Step 2. Then, it will show you the window Folder Options. Click View. In view tab, check "show hidden files, folders, and drives" and uncheck "Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)". Then check whether our files/folders are there.
After that, you can get into the Seagate external hard drive and see whether the files are showing there.
1. If the files in external hard drive not visible is caused by the corrupted file system, you need to fix the file system error. But before doing that, you had better to recover data from external hard drive with a data recovery software. After that, you can fix file system error as the following steps.
Right click the external hard drive, choose "Properties". In tools tab click "Check now", and then, check "Automatically fix file system errors". Then click "Start" and wait for the end.
2. But if your Seagate external hard drive files disappeared because of wrong file system, for example, if the Seagate external hard drive is NTFS, but your machine(like PS3/PS4) only supports FAT32, then the files will not showing up, and you need to change file system from NTFS to FAT32. Every one know that Windows Disk Management can format NTFS to FAT32, but it would delete all data on the hard drive. But fortunately, you can try to use AOMEI Partition Assistant to convert NTFS to FAT32 without losing data.
1> Free download AOMEI Partition Assistant to have a try. Install and launch it to a PC installed Windows 10/8/7. Click “Convert” in the top toolbar, and choose “Convert to NTFS/FAT32”.
2> It will pop out the NTFS to FAT32 Converter, select NTFS to FAT32, click Next.
3> Select the NTFS partition that you want to convert to FAT32. click Next.
4> Then, click Proceed to execute the operation.
Note:
Those three NTFS files cannot be supported by FAT32:
1. Compressed files.
2. Encrypted files.
3. Large files over 4GB.
As the mirror image in memory is damaged and the operating system does not respond a timely refresh, which may cause your Seagate external hard drive files disappeared, you can try to restart the computer and reconnect the external hard drive to your PC. Then,check if the real files are shown. It may be worked.
If the "CheckedValue" is suffering from virus infection. You can do as the following:
1. Run "Regedit" and then, follow this route in Registry Editor: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\Folder\Hidden\SHOWAL.
2. Check whether the data value of "CheckedValue" is "1". If NOT, delete "CheckedValue", create a new "DWOR" in the blank and rename it as "CheckedValue". After that, modify the value data as "1".
3. Then, you can go back to see whether the Seagate external hard drive files showing up.
If there is nothing help for getting data back, you should make use of the data recovery software, iCare Data Recovery, which allows you to recover data from the external hard drive as the following steps.
First, install iCare Data Recovery to your Windows PC. Connect the Seagate external hard drive to your PC, make sure it can be recognized.
Then, launch iCare Data Recovery, and use it to scan the drive thoroughly and get all the files you need. Preview files and then save all the data that you need to recover.
although the external hard drive always be used as backup drive, it may also suffered data loss. To avoid that, you can use the disk copy wizard to backup external hard drive, or you can take 9.9 dollars to get a backupper software AOMEI Backupper to backup external hard drive to cloud drive for securing data. Thus, you do not afraid of the problem like Seagate external hard drive files disappeared any more.