How to Find Pictures on an Old Hard Drive on Windows 10/8/7

Can't Find All Pictures on Old Hard Drive Windows 10

"I sold an old computer this morning with the hard drive left behind, which stores many pictures, including the memories in college, wedding ceremony, and honeymoon vacation. When I connect the old drive to my new computer, to my surprise, it shows empty! Any idea on how can I find all pictures on the old hard drive?" 

Old hard drives, USB pen drives, and memory cards that are put aside for too long may have problems as follows when you try to open and use again.

• Hard drive inaccessible, access denied.
• The hard drive partition file system displays as RAW.
• You need to format the disk in drive x: before you can use it.

These errors are related to various hard disk issues, especially for hard drives that are too old to work well. Whatever the reason is, when you encounter such problems, I'm afraid that you probably have lost data. That's why your hard drive is not showing files though they still exist. On this page, you can learn two ways to find pictures of jpg, jpeg, png, tiff, bmp, and pdf on an old hard drive. One is using Comand Prompt if the images are hidden or missing and the other is applying Qiling data recovery software if the pictures are deleted or formatted. Choose the way that better helps you access files on the old hard drive on Windows 10/8/7.

Method 1. Find Pictures on an Old Hard Drive with Command Prompt

As said before, the Command Prompt here can help you find all the existing pictures on the hard drive, including the hidden images. But if your photos have been deleted or formatted, the CMD won't be helpful, and you need to directly use a professional data recovery tool to restore the lost files with Method 2.

Step 1. Press Windows + R keys to bring up the Run box.

Step 2. Type cmd in the empty box and press Enter.

Step 3. On the Comand Prompt black window, type the command g: dir /s *.jpg |more and press Enter. (assuming that the old hard drive is detected as drive G:)

This will show you all the folders on g: that contain jpg files. If your pictures files are in other file formats such as png, changed the command g: dir /s *.jpg |more to g: dir /s *.png |more.

Step 4. Once you have identified the folder, copy the directory path and paste it into Windows Explorer. That's the path where you can find missing pictures with a specific format.

Method 2. Use Deep Data Recovery to Find Wanted Photos

If the Command Prompt isn't useful and you have lost your pictures due to mistaken deletion, formatting, virus attack, RAW partition, or lost partition, don't worry, you can use Qiling hard drive recovery software to find all pictures on the hard drive with ease and recover them intact. This photo recovery software enables you to recover lost pictures from a hard drive, emptied recycle bin, external hard drive, USB flash drive, Pen drive, SD card, or other storage devices with ease. 

Qiling data recovery software can not only recover lost photos, but all other files like documents, emails, audio & video files, and more. See how to recover lost Word documents in Windows 10. 

Step 1. Select file types and click "Next" to start

Launch Deep Data Recovery, select file types and click "Next" to start.

Step 2. Choose the location and start scanning

Hover on the SD card, camera, or hard drive partition where you deleted/lost pictures, then click "Scan".

Step 3. Select the pictures you want to recover

Once the scanning completes, select "Pictures" in the left panel. If you want to locate the lost photos, click "Lost" on the top list. Then, you can find photos according to the devices, types, and dates.

Step 4. Recover lost photos

After the preview, click "Recover" and choose another location to save the desired pictures.

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