I have an external hard drive that I was using with linux (Ubuntu 12.04, Gnome 3).
Now when I plug it into another computer running windows or mac os, I cannot see the files. There are two shortcut folders named ".Trash-1000" and "Untitled Folder". There are also two other files "._.DS_Store" and ".DS_Store"

Please let me know if you have any advice of how to retrieve my files that are still on the drive (Space on the drive is still used), without formatting/wiping the drive.

Thanks,
Ryu

The "1000" is the User Id the thrash can is for. "Untitled Folder" IIRC is the default if you create a directory in windows but don't supply a name for it and the DS_Store files are remnants of having mounting a file system a Mac can read.


So what happened between "using with linux" and "running windows or mac"? Did you delete files or directories? "Fix" problems running fsck? Not umount cleanly? What? Please elaborate: the more nfo the better.

Im not sure what happened in between... Nothing I think. I may have deleted or added files and/or directories, but obviously that wasnt "in between" anything, it was either ON linux, windows, or mac. So i dont understand why it would be a problem.

But i have realised that if i go to the F:\ or whatever drive relating to the hard drive, and then type eg:"F:\Music", it will show me the music folder with all of the contents - so its all still there.. but when i go back up a level to the hard drive, i still cant see the music or any other folders. And when i plug it straight into my TV, i can still see and watch movies etc on the hard drive... so its all still there.

I guess I'm not really answering any of your questions, but I may have unmounted uncorrectly, deleted files, etc.. the main thing i dont understand is that i know 100% that its all still there, but i just cant see the files.. and yes, i can access the files if i type the path in the address bar, but i dont know what else is there other than what i type if you know what i mean

hope that helps. appreciate your thoughts/help

ryu

Let's start over again. Can you still see complete file system contents (top level directory names, subdirectories and file names) in Linux? Meaning the problem is confined to windows and mac? What's the file system formatted as? If VFAT does (after umounting) running 'fsck.vfat -nlVv /dev/partitionname' show you all file names? If NTFS, does 'ntfsls -alRv /dev/partitionname' show you all file names?