HELP — ~500GB of RAW photography files disappeared from my WD Elements after copying from SSD
Hi everyone, I’m a photographer and I’m freaking out a little, so I’m hoping someone knowledgeable can help me figure out what happened.
I have a 16TB WD Elements external hard drive and an external SSD that I use for my photography files.
I had a main Photography folder on my SSD that was approximately 900GB and contained individual folders for different shoots/weddings, with a lot of RAW files.
I copied that entire Photography folder from the SSD to the WD Elements. After copying, I opened the WD Elements and verified that the photos were there, including RAW files. Everything appeared normal.
Because I thought the backup was successful, I then formatted the original SSD so I could reuse it.
Afterward, I went back to the WD Elements and discovered that entire folders are now missing. I can only see 3 folders inside my Photography folder.
The WD Elements is showing:
* Capacity: 16TB
* Used: ~473GB
* Available: ~15.53TB
* Expected Photography folder size: ~900GB
* Approximately 500GB appears to be missing
* The missing data consists of entire folders of photography/RAW files
I have NOT written anything else to the WD Elements since discovering this.
I also have no second drive with enough free space to use for recovery right now.
My biggest question: Is there a realistic chance that these missing folders/data can still be recovered from the WD Elements?
And what should I absolutely NOT do right now?
I was about to use Disk Utility and noticed a “Restore” option, but I have not clicked it.
These are important client photography RAW files, so I really don’t want to make the situation worse.
Please tell me what the safest next step is. Thank you!!