I bought a Maxtor One Touch II USB External HDD, installed it. I used the *duplicate* option in its software to copy all my personal files. Then, because I thought the files were stored on the external HDD, I did a rebuild on my internal HDD and erased everything and reinstalled all my software. Then, when I went back to the Maxtor external HDD, all my files were gone!!!

Is there any way to get them back?!


Thanks in advance,

Ray

Hi, it's me. You know the dummy that accidentally erased his external entire hard drive with the generous help of amazing Maxtor One Touch technology.

Well, I got this software called Search & Recover 2 (from Iola) for 30 bucks. And I got 90 to 95% of my stuff back. Most of what I didn't get back, I already had a backup of.

And so I have noticed two key problems.

#1... I have checked this and other boards on the Internet, and there seems to be a problem (at least, a user-friendliness problem) with One Touch drives in general. It seems that it's too easy to set the drive software up to ERASE YOUR FILES AUTOMATICALLY. You see, DUPLICATE MODE duplicates your files and directory tree from your internal drive and puts a copy of them on your external drive. Plus, as a nice extra feature, it updates the copies of the files on the external drive whenever you change the files on the internal drive. Now, here's the hairbrained part that I discovered by reading the fine print that makes no sense: WHEN YOU *ERASE* FILES FROM YOUR INTERNAL DRIVE (such as when you do a complete rebuild of your PC), THIS FUNKY ONE TOUCH SOFTWARE WILL *ERASE* THE COPIES OF THOSE FILES FROM THE EXTERNAL DRIVE TOO!!! NO WARNINGS, NO POP UPS SAYING "ARE YOU SURE YOU REALLY WANT ME TO DO THIS?" NO NOTHING, JUST FILES *GONE*, PERIOD.!!!! Now, I'm just a lowly end-user here, so what do I know, but that looks like a MAJOR DESIGN FLAW there.

#2... It would REALLY be nice if someone could respond to my posting. Even a short posting such as "Gee, not too smart there," or, "Sorry, you're probably totally screwed, kid," would have been better than nothing. I've waited like 3 1/2 weeks and so far 49 people have read my posting, but not one responded. What's up with that?

Ray

http://maxtor.com/

Knowledge Base

External Hard Drives -> One Touch II
Troubleshooting

Search Term : "lost files"

Access Denied warning or data may become inaccessible if External Drive is connected during the installation of Windows 2000 (Professional/Server), XP or Server 2003

Question

[INDENT}After reloading my Operating System, I have lost access to me External Drive...why? [/INDENT]

Answer

Problem:
After installing your Operating System (Windows 2000, Windows XP or Windows Server 2003), Data becomes inaccessible on your External Drive.

Cause:
During the installation, Windows strips the Security Identifier (SID) from the drive; thus making the data inaccessible.

Solution:
Ensure that your External Drive is disconnected from your computer during the installation of your Operating System as this will eliminate the problem altogether. If the drive was connected to the system during the OS installation and the drive becomes inaccessible, it is suggested that you do the following:

With the External Drive connected and powered up, login to you system as either the Administrator or as a user with Administrative Privileges. At that point, take ownership of the drive and its shares. Reference Microsoft KB Article 810881 or EMC Dantz Article 7887 for details.

NOTE: You must boot into safe mode to access the simple file sharing option


Use a third party, data recovery software to access the data


Contact a Data Recovery Service for assistance with recovering the data

Many of these problems are created when the drive is connected by USB while the computer and drive are working, in my experience. When you install it with the power off of all components, you get a better result.