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3 August 2023  Amanda J. Brook  Senior Product Manager
 

Summary
Discover the causes of sudden file disappearance, learn data recovery methods, and find solutions for repairing faulty hard disks. Enhance your knowledge on hard drive failure issues.



Table of contents

table iconI. What are the reasons for the sudden disappearance of hard disk files?
table iconII. Use Renee Undeleter to recover hard disk data
table iconIII. How to repair hard disk failure?
hard drive not showing files

I. What are the reasons for the sudden disappearance of hard disk files?

There are many possible reasons for the sudden disappearance of hard disk files, which can be summarized as the following points. You can preliminarily rule out the cause of the problem and try to solve it.
● Attacked by a virus or malware : When the hard disk is attacked by virus or malicious software, the virus will prevent the normal display of files in the device. At this time, you can try to format the hard disk or scan the hard disk with antivirus software to solve this problem.
● file is hidden : Some incorrect operations may cause the file to be hidden. At this time, you can check (Hidden items) in the (View) tab in the file explorer, and then the hidden folder will be displayed, right click on the hidden folder and select (Properties), uncheck (Hidden items) ) and click (OK) to unhide the attribute.
Change the hidden attribute
● file system error : When the hard disk has a file system error, it may also cause the file to disappear suddenly. The conventional solution is to repair it through the Chkdsk command, or to format the hard disk.
● Sudden power loss or disconnection : When the hard disk encounters problems such as sudden power failure and disconnection, the internal file data may be damaged or disappear suddenly. At this point you can tryrestore system To the version before the file is not lost.
● sector corruption : The hard disk is composed of many sectors, and the function of the sectors is to store data. When your hard disk has problems such as file disappearance and data unreadable, it may be caused by sector damage. There are many reasons for this failure, but usually it is caused by long-term wear or misuse of the hard disk.
● hardware problem : Hardware failure is irreversible, each hard disk has its service life, and the normal service life will decrease as the service life increases. When the hardware of the device itself fails, it will also cause the files to disappear suddenly. It is recommended to regularlyBack up important files on the hard drive .
The above is the analysis of the reasons for the sudden disappearance of hard disk files. Before repairing the hard disk failure, you can also try to use professional data recovery software to scan the hard disk. If the files are not damaged or overwritten by other data, then you can recover them. Carry out a deeper repair process on the hard disk. Let’s first learn how to restore or retrieve data files in the hard disk.

II. Use Renee Undeleter to recover hard disk data

1. What is Renee Undeleter?

Renee Undeleter It is a software specially used to restore various data files. When you accidentally delete important files, empty the recycle bin, or format the disk/storage, you can use this tool to retrieve the lost data. The software covers four functional modules, including file recovery, format recovery, partition recovery and image creation. Therefore, it can help you solve all possible data loss problems that may occur during system use in an all-round way, which is very convenient.
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Supported devices SD card, SDHC, SDXC, USB flash drive, hard disk and computer.

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2. How to use Renee Undeleter to recover hard disk data?

Renee Undeleter is a professional data recovery software. The trial version can scan hard disk data. The preview function of this software can also help you judge whether the file is damaged. The specific operation steps are as follows:
Step 1: Download, install and run Renee Undeleter, select the (Partition Recovery) option on the main interface.
Note: Do not install on the disk that needs to restore data, so as not to cause data overwriting.
Select partition recovery option
Data recovery function introduction:

File Recovery – Quickly retrieve files lost due to accidental deletion or emptying the recycle bin.
Formatted Recovery – Quickly recover files lost due to inaccessible or formatted partitions.
Partition Recovery – Analyze and get partition information and perform a full scan of the entire partition.
Create Mirror – You can create a mirror image for a partition to back up the current partition state.

Step 2: Next, select the hard disk device to be scanned, and click (Next). Select (default setting) on the advanced setting interface.
Select target device for partition recovery
Step 3: Afterwards, the software will analyze the hard disk device. After the analysis, a prompt window of “select the partition you need to scan” may pop up. You can select the corresponding partition according to your needs. If you do not select, it will scan all the partitions and consume will be longer. After scanning, you can preview the files in the preview window on the right, then select the files you need to restore, and click the (Recover) button in the lower right corner to restore the selected files.
Partition recovery scan result presentation
Step 4: Next, select the target folder, click (Browse) to select another disk to save the recovered files, and then click the (Recover) button to start the file recovery command, you just need to wait patiently.
Partition recovery data recovery interface
The above are the detailed operation steps of recovering data with the help of Renee Undeleter. After the data is recovered, the next step of repairing the faulty hard disk can be performed.

III. How to repair hard disk failure?

1. Run the chkdsk tool to repair hard disk errors

The chkdsk tool is a command for the Windows system to check the current state of the disk. It can display the disk state, memory state, and the number of discrete files in the specified path, and can also repair the disk. It is very simple to repair hard disk failure with the help of chkdsk tool. The specific operation steps are as follows:
Step 1: Connect the faulty hard disk to the computer, directly search (cmd) in the search box in the lower left corner, and select (run as administrator) to open the command prompt tool.
run command prompt
Step 2: In the opened command prompt window, enter the command ( chkdsk G: /f ) (G refers to the disk number of the hard disk), and press (Enter) to fix the error. After the repair process is complete, check to see if the problem is resolved.
Enter the disk repair command
Kind tips If (chkdsk G: /f) cannot solve the problem, you can also try (chkdsk G: /r), (/r) can find bad sectors and restore readable information, and (/r) includes (/f) feature and additional analysis of physical disk errors. the

2. Format the faulty hard disk

The operation of formatting the faulty hard disk can repair various faults of the device and make it work normally again. The detailed operation steps of formatting the hard disk are as follows:
Step 1: Connect the faulty hard disk to the computer, and then press the (Windows+X) keys on the keyboard at the same time. Then in the pop-up list, select the (Disk Management) option.
Disk Management Options
Step 2: Next, locate the failed hard drive, right-click on it and select the (Format) option.
format hard drive
Step 3: Select the file system:FAT32, NTFS or exFAT , if you want to use the hard disk in Windows system, it is recommended to select (NTFS), check (Perform quick format), click (OK) and follow the instructions to complete the formatting process. After the formatting operation is completed, the hard disk failure can be repaired.
perform a quick format