external hard drive files not visible

[G.]

On Wed, Jun 13, 2012 at 7:58 AM, Basil Chupin <blchupin at iinet.net.au> wrote:
> On 13/06/12 05:46, G. wrote:
>>
>> Not sure what happened but I can no longer see the files on my
>> external hard drive.   What is the best method for trying to recover
>> them?  Gparted shows the disc is empty.  I have not reformatted the
>> drive.
>>
>> I found TextDisk from an ubuntu help page.  Is there a better option?
>>
>> thanks
>>
>>
>> garyk
>
>
> Can you be provide more information, please?
>
> Which system are you running? Did this happen after you did an
> upgrade/update? What are you using to view the files on the external HD (I
> know you said that you used gparted but what did you use BEFORE)? Did you
> cleanly exit the external HD when you last looked at the files on it? What
> shows up when you - as root - do 'fdisk -l' on a command line with the
> external HD switched on? When you switch on the external HD do you hear the
> read/write head trying to read the disc?
>
> BC
>
> --
> Using openSUSE 12.1 x86_64 KDE 4.8.3 and kernel 3.4.2 on a system with-
> AMD FX 8-core 3.6/4.2GHz processor
> 16GB PC14900/1866MHz Quad Channel Corsair "Vengeance" RAM
> Gigabyte AMD3+ m/board; Gigabyte nVidia GTX550Ti 1GB DDR5 GPU
>
>
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Testdisk did not find anything but Photorec is finding lots though you
have quite a mess to deal with afterwards or so it seems.  The disc
appears to be working just fine.  I was using it on Unbuntu 11.04.  My
wife says she just shut down the computer and opened Windows
afterwards.  That should not cause a problem!

Thanks

garyk