I have a 200 GB Maxtor 2 One Touch External Hard Drive. I am running FAT 32 on this drive. Recently all my files have been replaced with unrecognizable file names and weird text characters. My folders are also replaced with non working "FILE" extension. Some of my stuff is still there but over half is weird. I plugged the HD into another CPU and same problem, weird files. It still recognizes it has GB left when I go to properties. any 1 else have this happen or know a solution? Here are what some file names look like: ò2 \3 ö2 Is it because I formatted the drive in FAT 32?
This issue shouldn't happen just because it's in FAT32 (although it would have been better to use NTFS), but I had this on one of my drives once, and it wasn't recoverable. (It was also FAT32, every drive since has been NTFS and the issue hasn't recurred). If you come up with a solution, let me know!