Disk Drill vs R-Undelete SE vs DMDE: Recovering deleted/damaged files

[michaelrobertson]

External HDD: Seagate Backup Plus Slim 2TB,
File System: exFAT

Hi all, I recently lost a large folder off of my External HDD, presumably due to disk failure, as I don't remember deleting it myself. I'm a newbie when it comes to data recovery, so currently I'm trying to use DMDE, R-Undelete, and Disk Drill.

In Disk Drill, within the "Deleted or lost" section, it shows a partition named "ST2000LM007-1R8174" (which, upon googling, I figured was the make of my HDD). Inside this is a folder named "Orphans" and then "Lost2243265." In this folder, there are some files that I need to recover, but they're quite large (~12 GB), and Disk Drill has a 500 MB limit.

I then looked here for good data recovery software and came across DMDE and R-Undelete. DMDE is currently running a full scan on the drive, and I expect this to take some time considering how large it is. However, R-Undelete doesn't seem to show the "Orphans" folder, and when I search the name of the file I'm trying to recover, it says "No files match the selected mask," while Disk Drill continues to show the file.

As I previously mentioned, I'm completely new to data recovery and have no idea why this is happening. Does anyone here know how I can locate the file on R-Undelete or DMDE when the scan is complete?

Thanks in advance!

[Alt]

Deleted or damaged files are very different. See this: File Recovery vs. File Repair.

[Alt]

As I previously mentioned, I'm completely new to data recovery and have no idea why this is happening. Does anyone here know how I can locate the file on R-Undelete or DMDE when the scan is complete?

Some useful information about R-Undelete:
Easy file recovery in three steps.
File Recovery from an External Disk with a Damaged, Deleted, Formatted, or Unsupported File System.
And R-Undelete online help.