what happened?! & 1 tb external hd isn't 1 tb.....

so i had my tb loaded with goodies...

i was surfing the other day... all of a sudden, my external hd window pops up and files start getting deleted... i had over 900 gigs, and it all got deleted literally within 15 seconds.... Does anyone know what happened? -it was all gone.... -not even in the trash... simply vanished...

I tried numerous programs... and nothing seemed to fully recover my stuff...

So i decided to just start all over... so now that my Tb is empty, it only reads 931.28 gigs... where did 68.72 gigs go? -i remember when i first got it brand new, it wasnt a full 1000 gigs.... but it was never that low...

Is there anything i can do to "gain" back my gigs?
Does anyone know why i lost all my data?

Please forgive me, I'm not too smart with computers.

thanks so much
kyle

Weird. I'd be surprised if it correctly deleted the files in 15 seconds. Scan it for bad sectors. From the sound of it, its screwed up big time. Also turn "view hidden files" on in case there are any DS_Store files or anything that could hint to the disappearance of the file.

See here:
How to Fix Bad Sectors on a Hard Disk | eHow.com
How to Fix Bad Sectors on a Hard Disk: Computer Tech Tips | eHow.com

veganlife said:

So i decided to just start all over... so now that my Tb is empty, it only reads 931.28 gigs... where did 68.72 gigs go? -i remember when i first got it brand new, it wasnt a full 1000 gigs.... but it was never that low...

Click to expand...

That's about right. It's the way hard drive sizes are calculated. Give this a read.

And it is never again 1TB after the drive is formatted.

If you update to Snow Leopard (which measures HDs in base 10 notation), you will see the size of your HD as more "realistic". For instance, SL reports my 320GB internal as 319.73GB.

Thats at least until he installs SL

EDIT: second

vansmith said:

If you update to Snow Leopard (which measures HDs in base 10 notation), you will see the size of your HD as more "realistic". For instance, SL reports my 320GB internal as 319.73GB.

Click to expand...

ok.

awesome!

so if i get snow leopard... what will that do with all my existing info? i assume EVERYTHING on my mbp will be wiped out??

again, sorry for the lack of knowledge for this stuff.. haha im not too bright...

and thanks to everyone giving advice. i greatly appreciate it and i love how so many people in here are soooo friendly!! -now if i could only get ppl to help me move to australia...

****. moving sucks. haha


have a great weekend all!
thanks again for your help!!!!