In this technological world, everyone knows the importance of data and the pain of losing your data. Imagine, you turn on your computer and your hard drive shows 0 bytes. Every time, you try to access the drive, it says, “Access is denied”. If you right-click the drive to check the properties of the drive, you will see 0 bytes of used space and File System as RAW. Isn’t it frustrating to know that all your data is inaccessible?
Probable Reasons
There could be few possible reasons for encountering the issue, either you have removed the hard drive without following proper methods or faced a power failure while using a hard drive or there has been a malware attack, or any kind of interruptions when formatting the hard drive.
Well, you don’t have to worry about it! We have listed ways to recover your data when hard drive shows 0 bytes.
1. Renaming Drive Letter
To fix the errors, you can rename the drive’s letter. Follow these steps to do the same:
- Press Windows and R key together to get Run box. Type diskmgmt.msc and press Enter. You get the Disk Management window.
- Locate the drive that shows 0 bytes and right click to get the context menu, select Change Drive Letter, and Paths.
- Click Change and choose the desired drive letter from the drop-down menu.
- Click OK and Yes then again OK to confirm your selection and close the window.
- Once done, restart your computer to let the changes affect and you will be access files on the drive.
2. Use CHKDSK Utility
CHKDSK is an inbuilt utility of Windows which can be used to repair the File System if it is damaged or corrupted. The tool can help to resolve the issue of hard drive not accessible and to show 0 bytes. Follow the below steps to run CHKDSK tool on the affected hard drive:
- Press Windows and S together and type CMD to get Command Prompt in the options
- Right click on Command Prompt to Run As Administrator. Command Prompt will get open as an administrator.
- Try “chkdsk X:/r/f” replace X with a hard drive which is inaccessible. And /f and /r are CHKDSK parameters. Press enter to run.
- It will take a few minutes so have patience and once it’s completed, you should fix your hard drive error
- Restart your computer to let the changes affect and once it comes up, try to access the drive.
3. Microsoft Safety Scanner Can Come To Use
If you suspect your system is infected with malicious content, then they could have also made the drive inaccessible. Microsoft has a Safety Scanner utility which can be downloaded and it is also compatible with the installed anti-malware software on your computer.
All you need to do is download and install the tool and let it scan the hard drive, it will show the reason and probable cause of the issue. However, if you want the tool to fix the issue, it could result in data loss as it will remove the bad sector affecting the hard drive and making inaccessible. Using this could be a risky thing.
4. Use Third Party Recovery Tool
If nothing seems to be working, then using a third party recovery tool could be the wisest thing. One of the best recovery tools available is Advanced Disk Recovery. Advanced Disk Recovery works wonders when it comes to recovering and restoring the deleted or inaccessible files and folders. Unless the data is not overwritten, the tool will help you get your files back. To get back the files, follow these steps:
- Download and install Advanced Disk Recovery
- Once the tool is installed, you will get Advanced Disk Recovery window, click Start Scan.
- A new window will come up prompting you to choose a scan type, Quick Scan or Deep Scan. Click on the radio button beside the scan type you want and click Scan Now.
- It will now scan and show the list of recoverable files.
- Now select the files that you want to recover and click on Recover to restore the files.
Once you get your data back, it’s time to take a precautionary measure for future. You should transfer the data and format your hard drive to eliminate and repair the issues. You can use Disk Management tool to format a hard drive and then move the data in it.
So these are ways in which you can recover your data from a hard drive that shows 0 bytes. Try them and let us know what worked for you.