Help!! How to fix Unallocated External Hard Disk Drive

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enewgate25

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Apr 4, 2013
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New here.
help me..i have my iomega external hard disk drive 500gb and it is full of files and movies

ok this is what happened

i am using my external HDD last night, it was attached in my CPU and suddenly my computer turned off without unplugging my external HDD
But this day i tried to attached my external HDD but it was not shown on my computer. and lately found out that my external HDD is "unallocated".

Is there any way to fix my external HDD without losing files.?

I want to use my HDD again and also dont wanna lose those files..please help me, thanks a lot.
 
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nukemaster

nukemaster

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Nov 23, 2004
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The problem with that is FORMATTING the drive will NOT get files back. The OP seems to want to get the files back.

Please try something like Recuva to see what it can get back. I am sure other will most more freeware and even paid options so keep an eye on your thread.

This is even more of a reason why EVERYONE should have a backup, just in case.

Whatever you do, Do not write any data to that drive even if you have quick formatted it, you may still be able to get files back ,but do NOT write data to the drive to avoid overwriting parts that have data.

I hope you get your files back.
 
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enewgate25

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yes it is "unallocated" and when i right click it, there is no "format" there is only "New Simple Volume" how is this?
and
is there any ways to solve this without formatting. I dont wanna lose my files.

thanks for replying..


 
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johnnyq1233

johnnyq1233

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Aug 15, 2007
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Can you restore to just before the power failure?
If so, try unplugging the external drive, restore to just before the power failure and when the system has restarted and back on desktop, plug the external drive back in and it might resume functioning as normal.
As a side note, getting a UPS for this kind of situation is sometimes worth the price of admission giving you time to do a proper shut down!
Hope this helps..JQ
 
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enewgate25

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so i will just choose "new simple volume" then use this Recuva software??

 
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JoeWil

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Sep 17, 2013
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I had exactly the same problem. External hdd was sat in a cupboard for ages, I plugged it in but didn't show up on 'my computer'. When I went to my computer > Manage, the space shows as "allocated".
I tried Recuva and various other software with no luck. Then I tried Acronis disc director 11 (trial version). It immediately recognised the drive as unrecognised. I started the 'Acronis recovery expert' and ran 'automatic' but this just stopped. Then I ran again using 'manual' and within 10s it recognised 494GB 'deleted' out of 945GB. Within another 15s it had made the repairs and the disc works fine again. Not sure what it did but worked wonders!
 
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bluetransformer

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Oct 16, 2013
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bluetransformer

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Hi There
I had a similar problem last week. Just bought a new desktop and was backing up win 8 onto my 2TB external hard drive that had about 1.5 TB of data. Photos from the last ten years, family history files and lots of precious data.
My desktop suddenly couldn't communicate with the hard drive and failed to recognise its presence. The hard drive could not be recognised by another laptop to which it was connected. I was devasted to say the least.
However I used File Scavenger which managed to locate the 'unallocated' drive and 72 hours later I was able to copy the rescued data onto a brand new 2TB external drive. The lesson that I learned was that external hard drives are not infallible when it comes to storing data. I now keep separate copies of precious data on other devices as well! Best of luck with your recovery efforts... it can be done!
 
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pilkersa

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After having no success with any solution I read this thread and paid my £40 for file scavenger. Absolutely brilliant - was on the verge of giving up. Please note I did allocate a drive name to my HDD in computer management before using Scavenger. No idea if that helped, but one way or another all data is recovered. Also may be of interest but I am recovering from a Mac formatted HDD in an enclosure to a Win7 PC, so really impressed this was possible.
 
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dzynit

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I wanted to thank bluetransformer for posting on how they were able to recover the files. That also worked for me yesterday. File Scavenger also recovered missing backups from my xp computer that I wasn't able to to see. It took 13 hours to save the files, but now I can reformat my external drive to be compatible with windows 8.1 and then copy those files back on it and start backups again.
The file scavenger was $52, but well worth it to save thousands of family photos and important work data.
 
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Deeee

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Mar 16, 2014
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Thank you soo much for your solution.. i almost gave up on my hdd till i saw this post..THANK YOU Bluetransformer!
 
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CinderallA

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Mar 22, 2014
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Hi，do you still need a solution?
4Card Recovery can recover your files. 4Card recovery is a useful recovery software which specializes in dealing with this kind of problems. You can download it for free on the internet and the steps are very simple to use this recovery software.
Step one, download 4Card Recovery and install it on your computer
Step two, run it and select the files that you want to recover.
Step three, choose the next button and to scan it.
Step four, store the recovered data on other disk.
Be careful and do not let your old data changed.
 
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