External hard drive not recognized... Partition table?

[CRTGAMER]

now it is my turn to have external hard drive problems again.

Can the external hard drive be removed from its USB enclosure and hooked up as an INTERNAL D Drive? Set C drive to Master and the add on drive to slave. Be sure to reconfigure the motherboard setup, maybe the PC might pick it up after you do this.

[Ivo]

Hi all,

the drive didn't fall and I hear no sign of physical damage (the usual would be clicking and whirring). The data has to be there still, I just don't know how to get to it. I thought of doing a "quick format" (should only delete pointers but leave the data) and then use an undelete program but that I think is hardly ideal.
I tried this "Get Data Back NTFS" program and the "TestDisk" program hoping to rebuild the data table or the file system but it didn't seem to work. Testdisk also came with something called PhotoRec that may work but for that I need enough space to copy into.

I'm like 90% sure I only have backups of important suff (and hoping my internal disk doesn't give problems while I don't recover my external) and a few not so important data that isn't anywhere else - but I wouldn't like to lose stuff regardless.

I'm travelling now and should only get a chance of looking into it again in two days. On the plus side I'm not using the internal hard drive so I think it will be safe with my sensitive data (documents and pictures) - of which I have a less up to date version in yet another location (I'm a bit paranoid).

Can't really remove this one from the case without messing up the enclosure - it is a rugged rubber case (allegedly even waterproof when not in use, but I never tried that).

[sonic2041]

Perhaps you didn't use the right settings when using Get Data Back NTFS. My brother knows more about it than me, so I will ask him when he gets home. I know the few times we have used it, it showed files that had been deleted from the drive, not just the files that were still there. It showing and empty partition makes me think something wasn't correct. I'll talk to my brother later tonight and post what I find out. Judging by what happened you should be able to get your data back.

[tintinmayo]

I've had the same problem, but with a Seagate external, one that takes power from the USB and an AC adaptor. Didn't do anything to cause the problem, I just opened my PC because I needed to clean dust from the insides, but when I opened it again it just started throwing the OS notice that the drive needs to be formatted.

Reconnecting and disconnecting it on different USB ports would sometimes give me a long delay, and the drive will show up with all its contents, but as soon as I try to access it, it hangs and I get the error that the drive needs to be formatted again.

Oddly enough, using the drive on my DVD player makes it show up and I can use it to play all the movies I have stored on the disc, so I knew that the disc itself and the data it contains is fine.

I can't pinpoint which one fixed my disk on Windows, but I was able to use the drive again on the PC when I used a shorter USB cable (the one I was using was one of those USB extender cables), resetting my CMOS, and disabling legacy USB support on the BIOS. When I opened the PC the drive functioned normally again.

(I believe I also prayed to Ares, the god of war, while wearing an Ultimate Warrior mask)

[Ivo]

Now I have some time and an additional (although smaller) external HDD to where I could save data I salvage from the affected one. I also know for sure that at least some data is in there, because one of the programs I tried recovered a video before I canceled it (doing this through USB is a pain).

Another question: will any of these programs let me look at the file structure, and / or recover the files with their names etc? Because so far it looks like all files would be renamed some serial number (like 00001.jpg and so on as it finds more)!

sonic, I will try Get Data Back NTFS again but if you have further input from your brother that would be welcomed.

Ivo.

[Ivo]

Another update: after 11 hours of waiting, I finished another attempt with Get Data Back NTFS.

The good news: it did pick up the files (this was using the recovery process recommended for when disks get formatted - which I didn't do). I can see the file structure etc.

The bad news: it tells me in order to copy the files I need to have the registered full version. It seems to cost 79 USD

Anyone knows of similar free software that I can try (after 11 more hours I guess)? Maybe Recuva will do the trick?

Ivo.

[CRTGAMER]

Another update: after 11 hours of waiting, I finished another attempt with Get Data Back NTFS.

The good news: it did pick up the files (this was using the recovery process recommended for when disks get formatted - which I didn't do). I can see the file structure etc.

The bad news: it tells me in order to copy the files I need to have the registered full version. It seems to cost 79 USD

Anyone knows of similar free software that I can try (after 11 more hours I guess)? Maybe Recuva will do the trick?

Ivo.

That bites holding the expensive carrot out of reach like that. On top of already damaging your drive by putting their proprietary write to sectors on it.

Be real careful, every time you power up the drive it might get some sectors wrote to. Even Windows will update write what is normally a harmless categorizing file (Thumb.db) in picture directories every time they are opened. This will erase files that are already in the fragile "allocation" state. Recovery software also has to write in order to extract, each has its own different method which might erase a little more data.

From what you posted at least the drive is being recognized thru the USB port. I still think you should remove the drive from its USB driven case even if it means destroying the enclosure. The drive hooked up internally as D drive will have a better chance at recovery.

Windows Explorer might even be able to at least pick up some of the folders, be sure to have it set to show all hidden files. Any files even if they show up as renamed such as 001.jpg, 002.jpg, etc; copy immediately to a folder in your C drive. Even better just burn them all to a few CDRs and deal with the renaming later. The important thing is to save any personal pictures you can before risking losing any more thru the inadvertent sector writes.

[Ivo]

I can't really open the drive through USB - it gets recognized. The best I could do so far was with PhotoRec it was clear I could actually recover some files but they would get renamed and sorting through them would be a huge mess, and through Get data back NTFS 4.32 I could see the entire folder structure (which let me confirm I didn't have anything crucial in it that I didn't have elsewhere, but a bunch of stuff that would be quite annoying to lose even though it is not that important) - but in order to "copy" the files out of it I need to register with some serial / license key.

[sonic2041]

I knew Get Data Back NTFS would work. The bad thing is that program does cost money.
I'm not sure of any free options out there. I have never used this, but you could give it a try, it says it rebuilds NTFS boot sector.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

[Hobie-wan]

Actually I believe that $79 is cheap. When I was looking for something for a customer who hadn't been copying data backups off the computer, everything I found was $500 and up a few years ago. That kind of software is really aimed at businesses that have a failure and have failed to follow good backup procedures and will be totally hosed if they can't get the data back.