I know we got some techies on here, and maybe some of you can give me some advice...

Last night after repeatedly trying to save a file in Sound Forge, I got an error message and shut down Sound Forge only to find that it had saved the file like 20 times (at a whopping 4 GB each). When I tried to delete the files, Explorer could not find them, so I thought I'd just reboot.

On the reboot, check disk/scan disk was launched immediately on my second/slave HD where the files were, and I guess the default preferences (I'm using Windows XP Professional) don't allow you to halt the scan. So after it was all done and I booted up, none of my files or folders were showing up on the drive Instead, I I had a folder with a bunch of File0001.chk files. Where my HD once had nearly 100 GB of files, it now showed only 20 GB

These were mostly media files (mpeg / avi) of my research interviews that I had not backed up yet to DVD-R or CD-R. I just bought this HD, a Western Digital--highly recommended.

I don't think it's a physical or surface defect, but seems to be some bad cross-linkage that resulted from the failed attempts at saving using Sound Forge.

In any case, I am doing and comparing scans and potential recovery using Virtual Lab Data Recovery Software, Final Data Plus, and Get Data Back.

Does anyone have any suggestions? So far Final Data Plus seems to have turned up the most data; Virtual Lab charges a per-10 GB fee of $100; and Get Data Back is still scanning. Not sure how usable any of the data will be cuz I'm just comparing scan results before doing a recovery.

Has anyone done data recovery? If so, what programs/services do you recommend?

If the file names that end with the extension ".chk" are names you recognize, you can try changing the extension back. For example, if you had a file called "apple.jpg" on your computer before the accident, and you now see a file called "apple.chk", try renaming it back to "apple.jpg".

Have you tried running Windows Error Checking on the drive? Open up My Computer, right click on the problem hard drive, choose "Properties" from the menu, select the "Tools" tab and press the "Check Now" button under Error Checking.

Try this google search on that extension...

http://www.google.com/sea...+extension

Thanks for the response Tom.

All the files were named File000.chk, File0001.chk, File0002.chk, and so on. And they were all exactly 32 kb. Nothing else was there.

I did run a recovery scan using a program called Get Back Data and was able to see a listing of the other files that I lost (they did not have any directory info which is why they were showing up). I copied some of them to my master drive and they are mostly crap--seems like a lot of them are crosslinked with other files so the media files are all cut and spliced

I'm still saving them though, as I may be able to recover something from them at some point.

This bamma ass computer... do ppl have these problems with Macs? Cuz after this bullisht, I'm ready to throw Windows out the window!

u called?