External HDD recognized, but files are not accessible

[MahaGuru]

Here is my problem:

I have an external hard disc 160GB IDE Advance for 1 year. This worked great until yesterday. Unable to view the files it contains. When I click the disk icon on the desktop it opens a blank page.

But when I right click> properties on the disk I see it as well otherwise the disc is full as before, which reassures me elsewhere. But it does not solve my problem since I do not have access to files on it, assuming they still exist ...

I have my whole life on this disc drive, 3 years of work, I feel very badly there, so if someone could help me to move forward, it would be nice.

I just noticed that the disk file system is FAT32 and not NTFS as my internal hard disc which works very well. I do not know if this is the real cause.

[Howitzer]

TrY with TestDisk to see if you can see your files!

[MahaGuru]

First of all thank you for your reply, then I want you to tell me how this software works because I have it but there is no setup file or .exe file to install it.

[Howitzer]

Run the software directly, no installation is necessary. For help: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step

[MahaGuru]

I have a question: TestDisk seems to be done to recover deleted files and when I right click on my disc drive in My computer, it tells me there is still 1.14 GB free, which means that files are not lost so why to use TestDisk?

[Howitzer]

Firstly, your partition table seems corrupt.

So you can always use the command line on the dos windows as:

chkdsk "your drive letter" /F /X

to see what it gives.

Then if you still can not access your files, TestDisk will help you select your partition and save your files.