[kyin01]

Problem: I suspect my external hard drive is old/worn out.

Symptoms: Device manager recognizes it as a USB device under Hard Disk, but disk management calls it unknown and not initialized.
No drive letter is shown under my computer. When I plug in the hard drive I would hear it spinning up and than quickly down, than spinning up again and going back down until it finally just idles.

Goal: Try to recover my jpgs, doc, and txt files.

Specs: FantomDrives 500GB 3.5'' model number TFD500U16 (had it for about a year and a half now)
It had an NTFS partition and no special software was used to maintain the external hard drive, nor was an operating system installed on it. Just basic files.
if it matters, My computer is a windows Vista home basic on a acer aspire 3050 laptop.

How it happened: just before I left for work, i had things downloaded STRAIGHT to the hard drive. When I get home, it seems someone in the household unplugged everything to move the laptop. Since than the drive has crashed. However, even before this I noticed strange behavior like it would just stop being recognized as a hard drive in the middle of copying a 30GB file, but at that time it was on a mac so I assumed it may have just been operating system differences with the NTFS partition.

Self Attempts: I've tried the drive on multiple computers as well as on macs. No new drive appears.
I've also tried a program called TestDisk but the program only saw my internal hard drive and nothing else.

After it asks me for a log, thats the next screen I got and it only found one drive even though my external hard drive was connected.



Perhaps testDisk isn't the best of program. Is there any method I can try or other programs?
I am desperate to recover mainly my documents and text files as well as .jpgs.

Thank you for your time.

[gberger]

Unfortunately, it sounds to me like you need a data recovery service.

Keeping everything on an external drive without having copies somewhere else, even if only on the pc, is not 'backing up'. You really need to maintain two copies of everything.

[dustyjay]

If there is no warranty, you can open up the exteranl case and try mounting the hard drive internally in a desktop computer. It just may be that the External housing has gone but the drive is still good.

[RonJr]

I would look in the BIOS first and see if it is recognized there. Just hit F1, F2 and Del all at the same time, one of those will get you in there. If it is then you can try to run GetDataBack. You can watch this video to learn how to us GetDataBack. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQBprGyy_Ko

If you can recover your data successfully then I would find out the make of the drive and get their HDD scanner and test the drive.

[dustyjay]

As a USB drive it is not going to recognized as a drive until the OS boots, though a USB Boot device may be recognized depending on the motherboard.

[kyin01]

Originally Posted by RonJr

I would look in the BIOS first and see if it is recognized there. Just hit F1, F2 and Del all at the same time, one of those will get you in there. If it is then you can try to run GetDataBack. You can watch this video to learn how to us GetDataBack. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQBprGyy_Ko

If you can recover your data successfully then I would find out the make of the drive and get their HDD scanner and test the drive.

I tried GetDataBack NTFS, and even that program wasn't able to find my drive

[RonJr]

Sorry, I forgot about it being a USB device. You might just have to remove it from the housing even if it means break it open. If its not recognized in the bios it wont be seen there. So try and hook it up internally either to IDE or SATA which ever it is.

[kyin01]

Here is a screenshot of what it looks like on disk management

I highlighted the external hard drive with a yellow box.
H10 is another drive and is perfectly fine.

and here is what it looks like on My computer

Doesn't even appear

[Elvandil]

TestDisk is the best program of its kind that I have found, pay or free, and it has already recovered many external drives in this forum. But the drive would at least need to be recognized by Device Manager for it to work.

You could use it with the drive connected internally. Since it only tries to repair the partition tables so you get normal access, it won't harm files so you could still try recovery later.

[RonJr]

Well if the HDD is bad and you keep tryin to use it, the more damage it could do, but from my experiences its usually if you can hear the HDD clickin or makin some kind of noise.

It could be that the partition is corrupted and thats why the OS is not picking it up but I cant be for certain on that. Maybe somebody else can chime in on that.

Really the only thing that matters is the BIOS and if that doesn't pick it up then my opinion is that it is done and there is nothing you can do other than some very expensive data recovery that is mainly intended for businesses.

Maybe somebody else will know a way but if they do then Im pretty sure that means getting an exact duplicate of the drive (make and model number) and swapping out the boards if the drive isnt making any noise as I suspect cause you havent mentioned that or swapping out the arm or motor which is not really recommended if the data is that important. If all else fails and the data is not worth the thousands of dollars to try and recover then I might experiment with it and try some of your own repair on the HDD. This guy will get you started if you have some what of an interest in doing it yourself. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCapEFNZAJ0

[kyin01]

hmm well right now I think I'll try putting it in as an internal drive.

If the hard drive is a SATA, are there any adapters that will allow a SATA to connect with an IDE cable?

[RonJr]

Hmmm? Ive always had IDE to SATA but not the other way around. I would just google it, Im sure there is something. But just know that there has been problems even with the IDE to SATA.