[Henderson339]

Hello, guys! I need your help.
Last night, the external hard drive of my girl friend was unexpectedly dropped to the ground as it was still in use. The hard drive seemed corrupted. Now, every time I try to use it on my laptop, there will be a message that is asking me to format it at first. My girl friend says it also has the same problem as it is connected on her laptop. So, we post our question here and hope some one could help us out. Do you have any idea? We cannot format this drive since most of her important files are still saved there.
Can you tell us how to get them all back?
Help us, please!

[Advertisements]

First and foremost, welcome to Geeks To Go's forums! I hope you stick around after we've assisted you in resolving this issue, as there is a lot of great members and information available on Geeks To Go's site. Now that the pleasantries have been said, let's take a look at your issue and see what we can do to resolve it!   The issue with what you've described is it took physical impact/damages. This could vary from the motor being damaged to the disk platters (like CD/DVD's) being cracked or broken. Then you have the possibility that it's the connection board (or connection itself) to the drive they host/put into the plastic shell. Either way, it is recommended we don't continue to use this in the future, even if we are able to recover all the data.
STEP ONE: Computer Management - Disk Management
First disconnect the drive and then follow this. Can you please open a Run command window (Windows Key and the letter R being pressed at the same time will do this) and then type in: CompMgmt.msc. Once the Computer Management window is open, drop it down to the option Disk Management on the left. Now connect your external drive and see if it shows up here at all. Does it? If so, what does it say about it? Also can you 'Right Click' on it in this window and select any options? If so what options are available?

[PhrantiQ]

First and foremost, welcome to Geeks To Go's forums! I hope you stick around after we've assisted you in resolving this issue, as there is a lot of great members and information available on Geeks To Go's site. Now that the pleasantries have been said, let's take a look at your issue and see what we can do to resolve it!   The issue with what you've described is it took physical impact/damages. This could vary from the motor being damaged to the disk platters (like CD/DVD's) being cracked or broken. Then you have the possibility that it's the connection board (or connection itself) to the drive they host/put into the plastic shell. Either way, it is recommended we don't continue to use this in the future, even if we are able to recover all the data.
STEP ONE: Computer Management - Disk Management
First disconnect the drive and then follow this. Can you please open a Run command window (Windows Key and the letter R being pressed at the same time will do this) and then type in: CompMgmt.msc. Once the Computer Management window is open, drop it down to the option Disk Management on the left. Now connect your external drive and see if it shows up here at all. Does it? If so, what does it say about it? Also can you 'Right Click' on it in this window and select any options? If so what options are available?

[Nathaniel029]

OK! After experiencing this trouble, I hope you and your girl friend could be more careful about your external hard drive, especially when it is in use. You should never forget to back up everything important at least on two hard drives in case of similar data loss problems.

But, now, what you should do is really simple. Just follow my steps:

1. Do NOT click "yes" to format the drive in case that the formatting process makes things worse.

2. Do NOT attempt to write anything new on this hard drive in case of any data loss.

3. Download data recovery software to help you. There are many data recovery tools out there. But, no all of them could be efficient and useful enough. You should pay much attention to opt for a proper one.

So, if you are interested, you can firstly try some data recovery freeware available online that always work much more efficiently than some paid ones, such as Recuva, TestDisk and iCare Data Recovery Free, etc.

4. Do not save or back up all the restored data on the same phone in case of any data loss.

5. After the data recovery process, simply format this drive to see whether it can work functionally as before.

I hope my words can help you out! Good luck!

[Henderson339]

Thank you for your nice help!
Now, I have re-accessed all my needed data on this unforamttrd drive with the help of some mentioned data recovery freeware above.
My girl friend is really happy.
Thank you very much!

[Henderson339]

OK! After experiencing this trouble, I hope you and your girl friend could be more careful about your external hard drive, especially when it is in use. You should never forget to back up everything important at least on two hard drives in case of similar data loss problems.

But, now, what you should do is really simple. Just follow my steps:

1. Do NOT click "yes" to format the drive in case that the formatting process makes things worse.

2. Do NOT attempt to write anything new on this hard drive in case of any data loss.

3. Download data recovery software to help you. There are many data recovery tools out there. But, no all of them could be efficient and useful enough. You should pay much attention to opt for a proper one.

So, if you are interested, you can firstly try some data recovery freeware available online that always work much more efficiently than some paid ones, such as Recuva, TestDisk and iCare Data Recovery Free, etc.

4. Do not save or back up all the restored data on the same phone in case of any data loss.

5. After the data recovery process, simply format this drive to see whether it can work functionally as before.

I hope my words can help you out! Good luck!

Thank you for your steps! My girl friend was really afraid to lose all her contained data inside this hard drive and desperately needed a way out. Your answer was really helpful to us, especially the listed data recovery freeware.
Now, we have restored all her wanted data back.
Thank you very, very, much!!!!

[Herry Smith]

I am agreed with Nath, if you want to recover your data from corrupted hard drive then you should follow the same process as stated above. I am familiar with utility Remo Recover since demo version of this software for the user is free so you can easily go for this utility. After using this tool I recovered lost data from corrupted hard drive. Just try it.