portable HDD refuses to pick up on laptop

C

cbachinger

New Member
i travelled by plane a few days ago and so disconnected my external HDD for packing purposes and it was working perfectly fine.

Then when I reached my destination, the HDD appeared not read through the USB cable as usual. I played with the plug a couple times and then I heard the connection sound - BUT i then got the message 'you need to format to access the drive'!

I tried the HDD on another laptop and the lights went on and i heard the HDD working but nothing connected and so it appears that there is a fault with the HDD itself - ?

It was working perfectly before and you will get slight knocks when you travel, although you do your best to minimise them.

Also, im 99% sure that the deep memory will help me retrieve my data but then sorting it out will be hell.
 
sometimes it can be a driver issue. have you checked Device Manager?

what kind of external HDD is it? what's the manufacturer? is it USB 3.0 or 2.0?
 
If you connected the hard drive to two different computers trying different ports the fault is likely the external hard drive. Hopefully that hard drive was not your only copy. Data recovery can get expensive.
 
if you have access to a desktop computer, you could probably remove the casing of the external hard drive to access the actual hard drive. it could be plugged into your computer just like any other hard drive. that way we will know that it's an actual hard drive failure and not the peripheral components (what the hard drive is hooked up to to connect to USB and (if applicable) AC power) inside the external that have failed.
 
it is a 1TB western digital external HDD and it is USB 2.0

Ill try different ports but again, when it briefly connected, it said that i have to format to access it. Apart from an overnight created fault what else could be the reason?
 
Try this. Uinstall each and every usb controller you see in device manager.

Change the USB cable to a known good USB 2.0 cable

Restart and update windows.
 
It worked!

My usb cable was faulty and i had the cable from my old external HDD :)

Thank you Bigfella and Swindon Computer!
 
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