Start or search
Create a new discussion
If you're asking for technical help, please be sure to include all your system info, including operating system, model number, and any other specifics related to the problem. Also please exercise your best judgment when posting in the forums--revealing personal information such as your e-mail address, telephone number, and address is not recommended.
Related Discussions
-
0
-
0
-
0
-
0
-
1
Can external HD lose some info after defrag?
I am an online college student in quite a bind. On my dell dimension 8200 running windows XP, I decided that my system was running really slow recently and decided to defrag my Maxtor Personal Storage 3100, which contains all of my college work.
The part of the system that was running slow was opening the shortcuts for a folder on my external from my desktop. So, I decided to run defrag of my external (F:), and after completion I opened the shortcut folder on my desktop with no problem; it even loaded faster!
I preceded to open a subfolder for a particular course I am taking, and I found the 9 individual subfolders within that subfolder; upon clicking it, I quickly realized that all the *.PDF files I saved yesterday for research on psychologist B.F. Skinner were no longer there. The rest of the 9 folders were empty as well.
I thought, "At least I still have my syllabus saved as a microsoft word document, which was only in the first subfolder, but upon clicking it I found an error stating that it could not load the file; file missing.
So, I rushed to check my 'Restore System folder' containing all the setup programs and text documents
with key codes I need to reload once I have formatted and reloaded the XP OS on the primary HD. Some of the programs were left with the generic white window icon when it does not know how to open the programs, but all the text documents were fine; the subfolders within this folder were also empty.
Also, a yellow exclamation message keeps popping up:
Windows-Delayed Write Failed
Unable to save all data for the file f:. The data has been lost.
After this it says it could be caused by a hardware failure or network problem. I have a network but it is only used for splitting the cable internet to different devices, we do not share files between the devices.
The end of the windows error says "please try to save this file elsewhere." I was not trying to save anything, so I take it that it is popping up because of the defrag.
Is it possible for me to get this information restored some how?
Can somebody please help?
I have built PCs in the past, edited registry, and worked for Dell tech support; so, I am pretty computer savvy and I am willing to try anything!
This conversation is currently closed to new comments.