External hdd not accessible

[Saba'a]

Is it working now?

Nope

 

[airborne]

Nope

Probably best to chuck it, from my experience with brown drives they either work or they don't.

Last thing you can do is open it up and hopefully you can scavenge the HDD if the USB controller isn't onboard.

 

[Saba'a]

Probably best to chuck it, from my experience with brown drives they either work or they don't.

Last thing you can do is open it up and hopefully you can scavenge the HDD if the USB controller isn't onboard.

Will try testdisk and diskdrill. If no joy, will have to open up I guess.

 

[Saba'a]

Diskdrill report below.

 

[Saba'a]

Running recovery now.

 

[Saba'a]

If diskdrill runs, I can access folders and drive.

Terminate diskdrill and once again not accessible. Luckily copied my key folders.

 

[Saba'a]

Just puzzled how it recovers 1.5 x the capacity of ssd. How come I can access ddive E when disk drill was active.

Terminate disk drill and back to unaccessible drive E.

 

[Dan C]

If diskdrill runs, I can access folders and drive.

Terminate diskdrill and once again not accessible. Luckily copied my key folders.

I think your partitions got corrupt.

 

[Saba'a]

I think your partitions got corrupt.

Anyway I can fix it? Its a 1TB drive so replaceable for less than R1000. In fact have an old 1TB external hdd to use in interim.

But want to see if ssd failed or just a software issue.

Going to try recuva as Disk Drill expensive.

 

[Saba'a]

Try Testdisk as well, has a lot of options.

Thanks testdisk led me to diskdrill which got me back my files.

 

[Dan C]

Anyway I can fix it? Its a 1TB drive so replaceable for less than R1000. In fact have an old 1TB external hdd to use in interim.

But want to see if ssd failed or just a software issue.

Going to try recuva as Disk Drill expensive.

Try https://www.hirensbootcd.org/usb-booting/

There are tons of software on there that can 'recreate' partitions.

 

[ponder]

Just puzzled how it recovers 1.5 x the capacity of ssd.

Probably corrupt files.

 

[Kiemo]

Thanks testdisk led me to diskdrill which got me back my files.

Fixed Saba ?

 

[StoneCold]

Thanks testdisk led me to diskdrill which got me back my files.

Thanks, going to try this with an old laptop drive later today and see if I have any success as I'm in the exact same boat with your initial problem.

 

[Saba'a]

Thanks, going to try this with an old laptop drive later today and see if I have any success as I'm in the exact same boat with your initial problem.

Try recuva first. Diskdrill has a 500mb recovery limitation.

More you have to pay. What I did is to leave disk drill active at end of search. Then copied files to another drive.

Ran recuva overnight but shows nothing. Hmm yet supposed to be better.

Edit

Recuva still does not pick up files after deleting disk drill and drive not accessible like with disk drill originally.

 

[Saba'a]

I think your partitions got corrupt.

Says zero lost partitions

But will try to reformat disk IF I get access again.

 

[Dan C]

Says zero lost partitions

But will try to reformat disk IF I get access again.

 

[Dan C]

Have you tried deleting the partitions from cmd->diskpart

From there you can initialize the drive through windows again.

Also this is a handy guide : https://www.eassos.com/blog/how-to-remove-partition-from-usb-drive-in-windows/

 

[supersunbird]

The file formatting probably changed to RAW due to some corruption, once you have pulled your files off (I have used Recuva for that) you can reformat and use again.

 

[Saba'a]

Thanks to all. As stated, managed to copy key files.

Hoping DiskGenius (previously Partition Guru) will manage to format drive. But its according to CrystalDisk on its way out.


Will replace it but just want to format it for the fun of it.

Edit

It cleared/unformatted drive and I could then format using windows tools.

Busy copying files back.

Special thanks to @Dan C (tip got my drive accessible again) and @TangoSA (tip recovered my files).

Will doublecheck health SMART via CrystalDisk after copying done.