[andyrocket]

I have a WD 500GB external hardDrive connected to a Dell8400. A couple of months ago I disconnected it, improperly I will admit, when I plugged it back in stuff was missing, so I ran error checking.(little hazey on details, it was months ago and I was in ohdearlord mode) Now it doesn't show any files and it reads that about 150GB are being used, when it should read about 350 being used.
I was able to examine it closer with a recovery app, and it just shows tons of empty folders with a dot and three letters. Can't tell where all the GBs are hidden.
No idea what to do. have tried several recovery programs and nothing seems to do it. they will either see those strange files and do nothing about it, or not see the files and still do nothing.
At a loss. Any help or guidance would be great!!

[Nitestick]

sounds like you've lost the data unfortunately. you could send it to a recovery specialist if the data is worth that much to you (it will cost quite a lot!). otherwise i think you may as well just reformat that drive and start again.

[KurrentEweser]

Depending on the software, you can do a deep scan to find lost files of known file types. This will take a very long time. For instance pictures or music can be found, but the original file names may be lost. Fragmented files can be a pain to recover. I would have done the file recovery before repairing any file system errors. Any writing to the disk decreases your chances of successful file recovery.