Files deleted during transfer to external HD?

[Surlethe]

Hey, has anybody ever had this happen? I was backing up a few minutes ago, got the error

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Error while copying.  There was an error creating the folder X. Error creating directory: Input/output error

I hit "retry" several times, then "skip." Turned out it was doing this for everything that was left, so I just canceled, unmounted the external drive, then plugged it back in.

I have a Library folder where I store papers and books that I might want to use as references or for research. Turns out, after I got this error, when I went to open a paper I was working on during backup, it was completely empty. Searched my home folder for some of the papers I'd stored. Nothing. A couple of them, maybe 1-5% of what I'd had, turned up in my trash folder. The rest - gone. Boom.

Any ideas what caused this and if it's possible to get them back?

[AMX]

Not sure what would cause that - have you checked the event log for any suspicious entries around that time?

If you are on Win 7, and if you didn't deactivate System Restore, you can try restoring the folder contents from the Shadow Copy:
Right-click the folder -> Properties -> Previous Versions


For anything more involved (like on another OD, or if you need a file/version younger than the last restore point, etc.), I'd recommend you give some more details (Operating system, how exactly are you doing your backups, and anything else that appears relevant), then wait for somebody with more experience to chime in.

[Dominus Atheos]

PhotoRec is the best Linux file recovery software.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download

Make sure you only search for .doc files (or whatever format they were in), and recover them to a separate partition from where you are recovering them from. That wiping has all the instructions you should need.

[Surlethe]

I'm running ubuntu. I've been backing up the old-fashioned way, by plugging in an external hard drive and copy-pasting.

I'm afraid that the external HD has a corrupted file system.

[Edi]

Either that or a physically damaged disk. You can check out the physical side with Crystal Disk Info. If anything other than operating temperature shows in yellow (or worse, red), the disk is fucked. Pay special attention to reallocated sectors count, sectors awaiting reallocation or unrepairable sectors. If the first or second is more than 4, the disk could die anytime and if the last one has anything in it, it's gone.