Recovering files that do not appear in the Recycle Bin, but are in the $Recycle.bin folder on external drive

Posted by Zach Morgan on Super User See other posts from Super User or by Zach Morgan
Published on 2012-08-05T23:16:08Z Indexed on 2012/10/27 11:07 UTC
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Problem: I have an NTFS external drive with a $Recycle.bin folder on the root (E:/$Recycle.bin/) that has about 70gb worth of data. For whatever reason, the folder is no longer a hidden system file and no Windows machine I have used the drive on will show the files in the actual Recycle Bin.

What I Want To Do: I want to atleast view the recycle bin files from this external, and all of the help articles I have read just talk about deleting the folder all together. I plan on reformating the drive, but first I need to see if there are any important deleted files.

What Didn't Work:

  • Recuva - didn't see any of my files
  • Resetting the external's Recycle Bin via command prompt and moving the old $Recycle.bin files into the new external $Recycle.bin folder (I didn't read this anywhere, just made it up on my own)

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