If you opened your external hard drive and your files were suddenly nowhere to be found, there are several reasons that might have happened. The good news is that most of them are often fixable. Below, we’ll walk through different methods that can help you figure out what went wrong and give you the best chance to recover files that disappeared from an external hard drive.
Why Files Disappear From External Hard Drives
Before jumping to the recovery techniques, here’s a brief overview of what causes file disappearance in the first place:
| Reasons | Description | Solution |
| Files and folders are hidden | If you are certain that the files are present on your PC but can’t access them, chances are that the files and folders are hidden. | Unhide Missing Files & Folders by using Windows’ built-in features. |
| Accidental deletion or formatting | Human errors like accidentally deleting or formatting your external hard drive. | Use data recovery software to recover data from the external hard drive. |
| Viruses or malware infection | Viruses and dangerous malware like trojans can result in abrupt file deletion and disappearance. | Scan and disinfect your external hard drive, then attempt data recovery first, then try to recover hidden files from the external hard disk storage if the malware changed file attributes, hid folders, or made the data appear missing. |
| A damaged boot sector | A damaged boot sector on NTFS drives can prevent Windows from reading the file system properly and make files seem missing. | Fix the external hard drive errors using CHKDSK (in some cases, it may be able to repair an NTFS boot sector by using the backup copy). |
| Physical damage | Mechanical damage arising from physical blunt force, hard disk head platter damage, moisture, power outages, etc. | If you are dealing with significant physical damage and your PC doesn’t detect the external hard drive, consult a data recovery service center. |
How to Recover Files That Disappeared From an External Hard Drive
As promised, here are the various techniques that you can use to recover files that disappeared from an external hard drive:
Method 1: Retrieve Missing Files Using a Data Recovery Tool
Data recovery software provides a simple and efficient way to reclaim missing or deleted items. In specific cases, such tools remain the only viable option for getting back what you’ve lost, especially after actions like unintended disk formatting or irreversible file removal (Shift + Delete).
Here’s how you can use Disk Drill to retrieve files missing from the external hard drive:
- Download, install, and launch Disk Drill on your PC.
- Connect the affected hard drive to your PC. Select the external hard drive from the list of devices, and click Search for lost data.
💻 For this tutorial, we’ll be demonstrating the process using a flash drive. However, the data recovery steps for a hard disk are identical.
- If the app asks which scan type to use, choose Universal Scan, since it gives you the most complete search and is usually the best starting point for missing files.
- Click on Review found items once the scan terminates.
⏸️Disk Drill allows you to pause/resume scans. However, we recommend letting the tool perform a complete scan to identify the maximum number of recoverable files. - Refine your scan results by using the broad filters on the left pane or searching for a particular file type. For instance, you can shortlist the scan results to display only jpg files.
- Alternatively, you could filter based on the file status: Deleted or lost, Existing or Reconstructed.
📁 If you want to check files that still exist on the drive, expand the Existing section. This can help when the data is still present in the file system but hard to spot at first. If the missing files were only hidden, you can also enable hidden items through the Show options.
- Leverage the preview feature to get a sneak peek of your data before retrieving files missing from the external hard drive.
👀 Watch me preview a file to reveal file attributes like the last modified date and file hierarchy.
- The next step to recover files disappeared from your external hard drive is to select the files and folders you want to retrieve and click Recover.
- Specify the destination to save recovered files that disappeared from the external hard drive, and click Next.
Disk Drill will show all available locations except the same external drive you’re recovering from. That’s intentional, since saving recovered files back to the same drive can overwrite other missing data and lower your chances of recovering more files. - Click on Show recovered data in Explorer to view the files that disappeared from your external hard drive.
If everything looks good, you can copy the recovered files back to your external drive, as long as the drive itself does not show signs of trouble. You can check that in Disk Drill too. It includes a built-in S.M.A.R.T. Monitoring module that can warn you about drive health issues, such as bad sectors, read errors, or any other signs the drive may be starting to fail.
Method 2: Unhide Missing Files & Folders
There’s a possibility you accidentally marked certain files & folders as hidden. Additionally, some file-hiding viruses like Trojans manipulate the “hidden” attribute to restrict file access.
In such cases, try these techniques to unhide and restore folders disappeared from the external hard drive:
Using File Explorer
Here’s how you can use Windows File Explorer to unhide your files:
- Use the shortcut Windows key + E to open up File Explorer.
- Click on your hard disk > View > Show > Hidden Items.
- Alternatively, you can click on the three dots > Options > View > Show hidden files, folders, or drives > Apply > Ok.
Using Attrib Command
The Attrib command allows you to change the file attributes of a storage device. As a result, you can unhide missing files and folders.
Use this command if the previous method showed hidden items and you want to turn them into normal visible files. But if your files did not appear there at all, this command will not bring them back, so you’ll need a different method.
- Load an elevated Command Prompt (CMD with administrative privileges) window. Here’s a shortcut: Press Windows key + R to open Run. Type in CMD, and then press CTRL + SHIFT + ENTER.
- Key in this command:
attrib -h -r -s /s /d F:*.*and then hit Enter.
Using Registry Editor
Windows Registry Editor (regedit) is a database editor that allows you to manipulate critical configuration settings. With Regedit, you can view and customize attributes like startup options, hardware information, boot-up parameters, etc.
Here’s how you can flip the switch to unhide your files:
- Press Windows key + R to open a Run window. Type in regedit, and hit Enter.
- Navigate to this path: “HKEY_CURRENT_USER –> Software –> Microsoft –> Windows –> CurrentVersion –> Explorer –> Advanced”
- Right-click on the “Hidden” attribute > Modify > change its value from “2” to “1” for unhiding your files and folders. Then, click on Ok.
- Finally, overwrite the value for “ShowSuperHidden” to “1” to display protection OS files.
Method 3: Fix the External Hard Drive Errors Using CHKDSK
Another built-in utility that might help if a file or folder disappeared from an external hard drive is CHKDSK. Sometimes the problem is not actual deletion, but file system damage. Directory entries can get corrupted, cluster chains can be lost, bad sectors can appear on the drive, all of which can make files seem missing even though some of the data is still there. Windows includes CHKDSK to scan the drive for logical errors and, in some cases, repair them.
Here’s how you can use CHKDSK:
- Load an elevated Command Prompt (CMD with administrative privileges) window. Here’s a shortcut: Press Windows key + R to open Run. Type in CMD, and then press CTRL + SHIFT + ENTER.
- Key in this command:
chkdsk F: /f /r /xand hit Enter.
- Replace F with the corresponding drive letter of your external hard drive. Press Enter.
Method 4: Scan Your External Hard Drive for Viruses and Malware
Viruses and malware are notorious suspects of abrupt file disappearance from an external hard drive. An infamous malware strain that hides files is IndoVirus. We highly recommend using an antivirus with real-time threat protection.
To scan your external drive for malware, you can use the built-in Microsoft Defender that comes with Windows or a third-party antivirus app you trust. We’ll use Avast for this demo.
Here’s how to scan the drive with an antivirus app:
- Connect the affected external hard drive to your PC.
- Open File Explorer and go to This PC.
- Right-click your external drive and select Scan selected items for viruses.
- Wait for the scan to finish and review the results.
If the app finds a threat, follow the recommended steps to quarantine or remove it. After that, check the drive again to see whether your files reappear. If they do not show up, your next step should be data recovery software, since the malware may have deleted those files.
Method 5: Contact Data Recovery Service
And of course, there’s always the option to contact a professional data recovery service. If DIY recovery is not on the table, or this is a work drive and you don’t want to be held responsible if something goes wrong, handing it over to specialists may be the safer call.
Professionals at data recovery service centers possess the know-how and technology, including sophisticated tools and clean rooms, to safely retrieve data from your external hard drive.
Here are some tips to effectively shortlist a data recovery center:
- 📃 Service range and expertise
- 🔍 Research for online reviews
- 📕 Read through customer service policies
- ✅ Look for industry certifications
- 🔒 Evaluate security policies
FAQ
Here’s how you can find missing files on your external hard drive:
- Open File Explorer and right-click on your external hard drive.
- Select Properties > View
- Click on Show hidden files, folders, and drives.
- Click Apply > Ok
Chances are that you are dealing with hidden files on your external hard drive. With hidden files, although the file contents are hidden, they still logically exist on your hard drive – and take up space.
macOS supports common formats such as APFS, Mac OS Extended, exFAT, and MS-DOS (FAT). It can also usually read NTFS drives, although it does not natively write to them. So if the files disappeared from the external hard drive on Mac, the problem may be an unsupported file system, permission issues, or file system corruption.
Viruses, file corruption, and default file-hiding attributes are some reasons why your files are missing on an internal hard drive.
The easiest way to unhide your files is by altering the internal hard drive properties from File Explorer to show hidden files, folders, and drives. Additionally, you can experiment with other techniques involving the Command Prompt (CMD) and Registry Editor (Regedit) on Windows for tweaking certain file attributes to unhide your files.
That usually happens because the other computer changed something about how the drive shows or reads your data. In Windows, the most common reasons are hidden file attributes, malware, file system corruption, permission issues, or the other computer writing new data to the drive.
It can also happen if the other computer showed a format prompt and someone clicked it, even by accident. A quick format can make the files disappear from view right away, even though some of the data may still be recoverable until it gets overwritten.
Conclusion
Files disappearing from an external hard drive is often a fixable problem. In a lot of cases, the data is still there, but Windows cannot show it properly because the files are hidden, the file system has errors, malware changed something, or the files were deleted (or the drive was formatted). Since the cause can differ, the fix can differ too.
Here’s a list of checks and methods you can try:
- Check whether the files are simply hidden in File Explorer.
- Use data recovery software if the files still do not appear.
- Use CHKDSK with care if file system errors are the issue.
- Scan the drive for malware or viruses.
- Contact a professional recovery service if the drive has physical damage or the data is too important to risk.
The main takeaway is simple: stop using the drive as soon as you notice the problem, start with the simplest methods first, and try data recovery before repair when the files matter.
