Invisible/Hidden Files On External Hard Drive!

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Hi Guys. my external hard drive has been acting up. First, it would stop halfway each time I would try to copy something over and I would get a error -36 Code. And now, it won't show my files. I see about 4 files but the rest arn't there. I know my files are still there because the most of the space on my external is used. And when I try to cope something over I get this message "The item "asda" can’t be replaced because it’s invisible." Also, when I can copy something over it will copy and it won't show up.

I've tried the terminal code:
defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES

And also, I've tried verifying the disk in disk utilities and I would get this message:
"Errors were found but not fixed 'cause read-only
I'm too afraid to repair the disk because I don't know if it will delete everything.

Oh and when I look at the hidden files with the terminal code I see 3 .fuse_hidden? What does that mean?

I'm using a Western Digital® My Book® Essential™ USB 3.0 External Hard Drive, 2TB NTFS
and my computer is a Macbook Pro Summer 2010 model running on OS X 10.8

Please please pleaseeeeeeee someone reply, I have a lot of important files on there! Thank you!
 
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Do you use this drive on a Windows PC also? If not why are you using NTFS instead of the native Mac format?
If you can try hooking it up to a windows pc and see if you can retrieve your files.
Your best bet if using on Mac and windows is FAT32 unless you're using files over 4 gig in size.
 
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Somebody set it up for me because at the time I didn't know what I was doing but if I reformat it right now i would have to move about 900 gigs and I don't know where I could store it
 
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Well, it looks like you're using macfuse, which lets a mac write an NTFS drive and there's something wrong with the installation.
I would try downloading the latest version from Macupdate and reinstalling it. Actually, the latest is this; http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/40156/osxfuse
Macfuse is no longer being developed.
Otherwise you're gonna need a windows box and another LARGE drive (or a couple of smaller ones).
 
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Will it be smart to repair my external hard drive in Disk Utilities? Or since it's a NTFS Drive, will it delete all of my data??
 

chscag

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Disk Utility can not repair a drive formatted to NTFS. In order to repair the drive, attach it to a PC, open a command prompt and type in: chkdsk /f x: (where x is the letter of the external drive)

Also, MacFuse is buggy, no longer being developed, and is know to cause errors and problems. If you really need a driver for NTFS access, the one we recommend is Paragon NTFS from Paragon software. ($19.95)
 

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If this is an NTFS drive I don't think you will get far with repairing errors using Disk Utility especially if member cradom is right about that driver going flaky. Unless I am dead wrong (see warning in my sig) you're going to want to use a Windows utility to repair errors if it can't be read.

You might want to take a look at a different NTFS driver and see if that helps. My choice would be Paragon NTFS for Mac OS X software. There is a demo version that might give you an idea whether the files can be read.
 
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I'm already using Paragon! I don't know what's wrong because every time I verify my external it tells me that errors are found but can't be fixed because it's read-only and my permissions for my external says that I can read and write!
 

chscag

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Read Post # 6 again and follow the directions given.
 
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Ok! I just connected it to my Gateway laptop and everything shows up just fine on it..should I still follow directions for post 6 or try something else??
 

chscag

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Go ahead and run chkdsk on the drive just in case it does have errors. So yes, follow the directions I gave you previously in Post 6. If there are any errors that should take care of it.
 
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Ok! I'm trying to run it right now and I'm not getting it. Can you give the directions in a more detailed way??
 

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