My external hard drive isn't working properly

B

Blackbart

New Member
Hi

I recently started having problems with my external hard drive. Whenever I plug it in the system wants to format it. This has happened very fast, one minute I'm putting something on it with my laptop next I plug it into my desktop and its not working. I tried it on 2 PCs both with windows 7. I have some data that I need to recover from there but most recovery software or services are too expensive for me and the content isn't extremely valuable. Please help me out guys.

Paul
 
Hi Paul, forget the spammer above.

I would remove the HDD from the external enclosure and attach it directly to a PC motherboard and see if you can retrieve the information that way.
 
Thx for the response

I have tried your idea but it didn't help. The system still wants to format the disk when I plug it in.

Paul
 
I have found on internet someone who has solved exactly the same problem. However the program he used isnt free. With it he restored the boot sector (i have no idea what that means). The program is called Active Partition Recovery. Maybe you know an alternative to that.

Paul
 
So just to be clear, you have connected the offending HDD to a working system with a working Windows installation (i.e. a slave connection)?
 
@bigfella
I don't understand what you are saying. You have to remember that my knowledge of computers isn't as big as yours
@stranglehold
it is a storage external hard drive
 
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Unscrew the enclosure, remove the hard drive. Connect said harddrive to the computer via SATA cable and power cable.
 
I've bought the cable and plugged it in directly and still the same situation. Computer found the hard drive but wanted to format it.
 
Hard drive is gone then. Try a free data recovery program (google it) and see if it can recover off the hard drive. You'll probably be suprised.
 
Then it doesn't sound good. Can you remove the drive from the case and run a diagnostic on it using the drive manufacturer's diagnostic program?
 
Well the diagonstic program had to tests and here are the results:

Smart test:
Failed to complete test on drive 2
Status code =07 (Failed read test element), Failure Checkpoint = 97 (Unknown test)

Extended test found some bad sectors but may be repairable, I didn't continue as it may delete the files in those sectors.
 
Your best bet is to replace the drive. Once you start getting bad sectors they continue to spread.
 
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