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General discussion

External Hard Drive and data

Oct 29, 2018 9:24AM PDT

I recently downloaded all the data from my external hard drive to my laptop. Now my hard drive is almost full. I need to find that data and get it off but I am having issues in doing so. Any one know how to do that?

Discussion is locked

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do same way in reverse
Oct 29, 2018 10:54AM PDT

what issues?

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Data
Oct 29, 2018 12:11PM PDT

Hello Wash4244,

can't you find the data? And where?

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data
Oct 29, 2018 1:23PM PDT

When i downloaded the data from External drive not sure where it went on my pc. Plus just realized i dont have the WD hard drive softwre on this pc either

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Re: data
Oct 29, 2018 1:29PM PDT

Downloading is not the right word for what you did, most likely. Downloading is done in a browser (like Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer) and it's from the Internet to your PC.

What you did, probably, is copying it from the external disk to the internal disk (c:-drive) with Windows Explorer (File Explorer in Windows 10) or My Computer. Alas, only you know where you copied it to. The easy way to find it is to search for a known filename. And since you can still look on that external disk, you know the names of the files you copied.

And you don't need special software (like the WD hard drive software) to read data from an external disk or copy data to it.

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data
Oct 29, 2018 1:33PM PDT

Thanks, yes we tried that as well and still couldnt locate.

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Tried Starting The Same Process Again ? And This Time...
Oct 29, 2018 6:16PM PDT

As the process starts, look to see which directory/folder the copy/save wants to put the files on your laptop? Hopefully you understand this bad sentence but it should tell you where the files were saved to.

Hope this helps.

Grif

Post was last edited on October 29, 2018 6:17 PM PDT

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data
Oct 30, 2018 8:20AM PDT

Thanks, yes i did that it shows up as E: but doesnt show me where its putting it. I understand my ignoance on this subject hence the reason im having this issue.

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Re: E:
Oct 30, 2018 8:27AM PDT

You said you copied it to the laptop, but I don't think E: is the laptop. The laptop is C:, isn't it? The drive letter of the external hard disk (if that is EHappy isn't relevant.

How did you copy it?

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data
Oct 30, 2018 8:43AM PDT

No, i meant when i conntect the drive its E and i dont know i was in a rush and i just chose to xfer it all to C drive. But when i Used to connect it to my other laptop the WD software would populate and tell me where it was going to be put on my computer this time it didnt so now like an idiot i have no clue where it is or how to find it

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Just A Thought.. Did You Make a "Backup" And Not Copy?
Oct 30, 2018 9:48AM PDT

If the transfer of files from the external drive to the laptop wasn't a simple copy and paste, but was instead a backup, then a backup process saves all those files as a .bak or maybe a .zip file. It compresses them to a "group" file that is smaller and saves quicker. And if the transfer was performed by the Western Digital software, then it may be some other type of file extension. You may need to look for that file type by performing the process again and see what the file extension is and where it places. it. The link below provides a WHOLE BUNCH of backup file extension types you can look for:

https://fileinfo.com/filetypes/backup

Hope this helps.

Grif

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Re: transfer
Oct 30, 2018 1:00PM PDT

You "just chose to transfer it all to C drive". I've seen such an option when connecting an external disk.

Anyway, use Treesize Free from https://www.jam-software.com/freeware/ and look for folders that are (much) larger than you expect or than they used to be or that didn't exist before this unhappy incident. That could be the folders that contain files you copied.

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xfer
Oct 31, 2018 11:48AM PDT

I see i got that treesize free. it shows C drive full. how do i find the files in there to pull off?

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Re: xfer
Oct 31, 2018 1:50PM PDT

It shows the size of all folders. And if you select a folder it shows the size of all subfolders. And so on.

Now all you have to do is to find the unexpected or unexpectedly large (sub)folders. Those might contain files you don't know of.
The program can even show and delete individual files, but I prefer Explorer for that part of the job (remember that deleting just means moving to the recycle bin, so you have to clear that afterwards).

For the folders you have a backup of on another medium, you can compare the size on your c:-drive and on your backup (but that's manually, Treesize can't).

And, no, there is no magic bullet. It's your PC, and only you know what should be on your disk, and this program helps you find things that shouldn't be present.

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Ok
Oct 31, 2018 1:53PM PDT

Got it. So what ended up happening was I restored everything from
E drive to PC. Which added a ton of crap to hard drive. No I’m just wiping cleaning starting over lol. Terrible and won’t happen again. Thanks everyone for the insight

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computer basics
Oct 31, 2018 2:11PM PDT