Damaged External Hard Drive. Possible Recovery?

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
J

JunoRegina

Honorable
Jun 9, 2013
1
0
10,510
Hi guys,
My external hard drive fell off the desk (Elements, 1TB). I haven't been able to access it since then. My laptop is able to recognize it, but asks me to format it, citing an input/output device error. When I connect it, it spins normally (NO CLICKING), and the problem persisted on all 3 laptops I connected it to. I tried several types of data recovery software (Recuva, MiniTool Power Data Recovery, and many, many others) but none of them seems to be able to scan the drive for files. The only thing bordering on successful was MiniTool, which was able to identify RAW files on there, but it keeps freezing so it never gets the job done. This thing has 300 gig worth of stuff, so is there any hope there??
 
Solution
markwp
Make yourself a bootable media (disc or usb) of a linux distro such as ubuntu or linux mint. Run that in "test" mode and use the file manager to see if you can open (mount) the drive in question. If you can, you should be able to copy your files to a different drive.

You can also try TESTDISK which will run under windows, dos or linux.

Mark
Sort by date Sort by votes
markwp

markwp

Dignified
Jan 22, 2013
3,183
0
14,960
Make yourself a bootable media (disc or usb) of a linux distro such as ubuntu or linux mint. Run that in "test" mode and use the file manager to see if you can open (mount) the drive in question. If you can, you should be able to copy your files to a different drive.

You can also try TESTDISK which will run under windows, dos or linux.

Mark
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
B

_Brute_Force_

Honorable
Mar 27, 2012
103
0
10,690
+1 for linux distro, it handles corrupted hard drives way better than windows, it will be able to report I/O errors within seconds, rather than windows hours. It also has automatic drive health checks that runs automatically and let you know if one of your drives is about to die, might give you some valuable info about your failed hard drive.

One other thing that actually worked out for me before, however I wasn't sure how the hard drive I was recovering failed. It was FREEZING the drive. pretty much put it in a air tight container and leave it in the freezer for a while, take it out plug it in, should work for a few minutes to back it up. google this method, it saved my ass once before.

Good luck!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom