Chkdsk broke my data :(

[sirplayalot]

For one reason or another my PC restarted after some windows updates and chkdsk decided to run on my backup drive (internal 3tb). It reported no bad sectors, but did a lot of deleting and recovering of orphan files. After my PC booted back up, the size of the drive never changed (same amount of free space) but a lot of my files are corrupt. My pictures no longer open and many folders containing a lot of data are unreadable (properties reports 0 files and 0kb data.

What do I do?

 

[DavidT99]

As its a backup drive just run a full backup again.

David

 

[sirplayalot]

That would be nice if I actually kept up with backing up data. I have another external hdd that I usually sync with the drive every other week or so but I've been slacking. There's about a month worth of data on the drive that I lost.

 

[KingFatty]

Maybe you have a virus or malware that was doing something funny, and so chkdsk just did it's normal thing but the malware was the root issue - have you done a good virus scan?

 

[sirplayalot]

Oddly enough I just installed a new SSD and had a fresh install of windows just minutes prior to this happening.

 

[C1]

A guess is that all the new installation scrambled the NTFS MFT on your backup.

I never authorize check disk to modify anything; only tell me what it finds.

Take a look here and see if there is any possibility of repair/recovery:

Repair An NTFS MFT

The MFT (Master File Table) is sometimes corrupted. If Microsoft's Checkdisk (chkdsk) failed to repair the MFT, run TestDisk. In the Advanced menu, select your NTFS partition, choose Boot, then Repair MFT. TestDisk will compare the MFT and MFT mirror (its backup). If the MFT is damaged, it will try to repair the MFT using the backup. If the MFT backup is damaged, it will use the main MFT.

If both MFT and MFTMirr are damaged and thus cannot be repaired using TestDisk, you might want to try commercial software like Zero Assumption Recovery, GetDataBack for NTFS or Restorer 2000.

ref: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Advanced_NTFS_Boot_and_MFT_Repair

 

[Blain]

That would be nice if I actually kept up with backing up data. I have another external hdd that I usually sync with the drive every other week or so but I've been slacking. There's about a month worth of data on the drive that I lost.

Only losing a months worth of data is a very small "educational expense".
Many people have paid a much higher price for the same education.

 

[corkyg]

Very sorry about your potential data loss. Always stay in command - don't trust automatic anything including CHKDSK. Another lesson to be learned - don't rely on backup systems. I offload all my digital images onto three different storage drives. Two are never "ON" unless I turn them on.

 

[Blain]

I offload all my digital images onto three different storage drives.
Two are never "ON" unless I turn them on.

And are those two in in a faraday cage when not in use?