Data Suddenly Gone?, Videos, Music and Games folders suddenly empty Options

[Tazzie76]

Hi All,

I have the strangest thing, which worries my kids ;-)

When I uploaded a new video yesterday to the XBOX, I returned to the laptop after some time and saw that the uploading had stopped. He could not find the directory to upload. Further investigation showed that the Video folder was cleared! No files were present anymore! Same goes for the Games, Pictures and Music folders on the F drive.

What happened? Where are all the files. The kids had about 40 movies on there, so they will be, lets say, disappointed to see all their movies gone.

Is there a way to retrieve all the files? When I connected trough FTP on the chip, it says it has 30 GB left on F, which somehow tells me the files are still there (as the drive is about 300 GB big). But I cannot see them through FTP.

Anyone that could be of assistance here would be much appreciated!

Kind regards,

Taz.

[Heimdall]

It sounds as though the partition is larger than 256GB, and you didn't format it with XBPartitioner 1.1, so you now have data corruption. You need to check the cluster size, and if the partition is > 256GB and the cluster size is only 16kB then you need to reformat the F partition (you will lose all of your data, so try to back up what you can before you start) then check the cluster size again to make sure that it is now 32kB. See the link in my signature - Format hard drive / check cluster size.

[Tazzie76]

Ok, I am going to sound like a complete newbee.

I had it chipped, so did not do it myself. It starts XBMC when booting and that it as much as I know of it. (and how to connect over FTP of course).

So how do I boot Evox?

But based on your reply, I am screwed. Data is gone forever right?

[Heimdall]

You don't need to boot Evox, you put a clean copy in E:\Apps\Evox\ and run it as an application from the XBMC file manager.

If you had it chipped recently (in the last two years) and the modder fitted the large hard drive for you, you might want to ask him/her how they formatted the drive, and if they checked the cluster size.

The data may not all be gone forever, but you would have to recover the files manually using Photorec, and work out which files were corrupt and which could be kept. It's easier to restore them from your backup.

This post has been edited by Heimdall: Jun 6 2011, 01:41 PM

[Tazzie76]

Well, backup is so we say non existent, at least not all the 50+ DVD's from the girls.

And I just checked the E:\Apps folder. Besides T3CH it is empty. Box was modded a long time ago >5 years.

You mentioned Photorec, so how do I approach that? The hard disk is locked as far as the X3 rom could tell me. Do I need to take out the drive? I have downloaded that tool, so I guess I still need Evox, which is going to be a search as far as google goes.

Many thanks though for your patience and answers so far. I did not sleep very well last night ;-)

This post has been edited by Tazzie76: Jun 6 2011, 01:59 PM

[Heimdall]

If the Xbox was modded 5 years ago then the modder should have split the disk between F and G partitions, so that both were below the magic 256GB limit.

If you want to use Photorec you use X3 config live (press the white button while booting) to unlock the disk before connecting it to your computer.

If you haven't done so recently you might want to think about updating XBMC to the latest version - just Google xbmc4xbox.

This post has been edited by Heimdall: Jun 6 2011, 02:22 PM

[Tazzie76]

Many thanks!

So basically, my approach looks like this:

1. Perform a backup of everything I can still see on the F-drive by using FTP
2. Boot into the X3 config by pressing the X or white button during boot
3. Unlock the drive
4. Take out the drive, use a external bay to connect it to my PC
5. Use Photorec to retrieve the files missing (this is going to take a while ;-))
6. Once all files retrieved, plug it into my xbox again
7. boot into the X3 config by pressing the X or white button during boot
8. Relock the drive
9. Format the F and G partitions again, using the 32k cluster size
10. Copy all the retrieved files back on the drive

Is this correct? In short words, this could take a week or so ;-) No worries, if this retrieves the discs for my kids.

Last small question. Once I unlock the drive, can it also be relocked using the same approach? Do I need to log keys somewhere?

Thanks again for the swift replies. I am no newbee to software development, but I am for the xbox or any non windows based systems ;-)

I have also checked xbmc4xbox you mentioned. Can I just replace the version I already had without losing for example the usedata database? Can I just backup that folder, do the copy and replace it again? Is it backwards compatible? Very nice to have a forum like this!

This post has been edited by Tazzie76: Jun 6 2011, 02:33 PM

[Heimdall]

Almost.

You missed out the bit where you have to check the retrieved files to see what they are, to rename them accordingly, and to see which ones are corrupt. For videos, that probably means watching them all the way through....

(Just so you don't get your hopes up, you should expect a reasonable amount of corruption, and you're unlikely to recover all of the files.)

You also missed out the bit where you create a backup of the files you transfer to the rebuilt Xbox, so that if the drive fails at sometime in the future you can build a new one......

[Tazzie76]

Guess I will be watching some movies the next couple of days ;-)

As to the backup and the amount of files I could retrieve, I have already started newsleecher to regain at least the most important videos. Anything that I can save would be a plus. (especially some really old discs like Tik Tak for the young ones).

I will make sure to have a second drive of 300 GB for the backup, in case something gets messed up again.

Thanks for the answers. I need to get to work ;-)