[DanCov]

Hi

Recently my external hard drive has stopped working, which as anyone would know is extremely annoying, as it contains data which I cant replace and wouldn't want to lose.

Anyway the problem at the moment is when I plug the hard drive into my computer is says the drive needs to be formatted, then when I click cancel it says Cyclic Redundancy Check Error. I'm also not allowed into the drive without it telling me I have to format it. I've tried several pieces of software to fix the drive but the drive seems to disappear after a few minutes, which then stops the software from working. The drive has also changed from my name to local disk(J).

I can actually get the hard drive to work for around a minute on my ps3, which allows me to see all my folders and play media, but after a minute the device stops and disappears again.

I have heard it could be do to the casing, and could be fixed by replacing this, but wouldn't know how to, so a guide would be amazing.Any help or suggestions to get this fixed would be greatly appreciated.

I have a 1tb iomega external hard drive.

Thanks

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Hi DanCov.

DISCLOSURE: I am not a Geek. I did, however, have a similar issue recently, but with my secondary internal HDD. I used the free EASUS Disk Copy 2.3 from Download.com to move my data from the otherwise unreadable secondary HDD to a partition on my primary HDD. Disk Copy runs its own OS from CD, and can, I've heard, often read from HDDs and partitions that other OSs have problems with. It worked for me, anyway.

I know this doesn't fix your external HDD, but I expect a good first step is to back up your data no matter what is done in that regard.

Hope you find this useful.

[GBailey]

Hi DanCov.

DISCLOSURE: I am not a Geek. I did, however, have a similar issue recently, but with my secondary internal HDD. I used the free EASUS Disk Copy 2.3 from Download.com to move my data from the otherwise unreadable secondary HDD to a partition on my primary HDD. Disk Copy runs its own OS from CD, and can, I've heard, often read from HDDs and partitions that other OSs have problems with. It worked for me, anyway.

I know this doesn't fix your external HDD, but I expect a good first step is to back up your data no matter what is done in that regard.

Hope you find this useful.

[Digerati]

Sadly, you've just learned the lesson to always keep a current back up.

By "casing", do you mean the external enclosure? If so, then yes, it could be that, or the USB interface.

If this were me, I would remove the drive from the external enclosure and install it into my computer as a secondary (not boot) drive. Then I would attempt to copy off the files I want to keep. If unsuccessful, I would run Error Checking or chkdsk /r on the drive. If still no luck then a file recovery program may help. The EASEUS Disk Copy program may help and is worth a try but note it creates an exact image of the disk - which may include any corrupted data - including that causing the problem.

[DanCov]

Hi

Thanks for all the help i will try out your suggestions today and get back to you on what the results were.

And yes from what ive been told it is the external enclosure, but i dont have a brilliant sense of computers so wouldnt know myself.

How would i go about installing the drive as a secondary on my computer?

I have actually tried using the EASEUS program but after a few mins of running the drive dissapears and the programs stops working.Ive also tried running an error check on the drive, which stated that it couldnt access the drive.

Thanks for the help

Dan

[Digerati]

How would i go about installing the drive as a secondary on my computer?

You would have to open the enclosure and remove the drive. Then connect it internally to the computer. If SATA, any spare SATA connector. If IDE, then you need to determine what other IDE device you have attached first, then go from there either as a slave on the primary cable, or Master or Slave on the secondary.