External WD HDD 1TB. All the data is gone.

zeriasis

Distinguished
Jan 28, 2013
205
1
18,685
Ok, so a while back I went to try to use my External HDD and it wouldn't be recognized by my computer so I put it to the side for a while but now I need to get to some of the stuff on the HDD.
So I've tried everything I could search and find. I have now removed the HDD from it's original case and installed it into my computer.
It's not being recognized in My Computer, But it is being recognized in Disk Management.
When I go to Disk Management I get "You must initialize a disk before Logical Disk Manager can access it." I get the options of MBR or GPT.
Is there anything I can do to recover the data on this HDD. I have a lot of old personal stuff on this hdd as well.
 

Teresajin6

Reputable
Aug 10, 2014
6
0
4,510
To increase the possibilities of successful original drive data recovery, do not format or initial this hard drive before rescuing all your personal stuffs back. To rescue your drive data back, you need to take chances with some data recovery software, there are many similar tools online.
To know some detailed information of data recovery, this posting may give you some helps:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/258623-32-anyway-recover-data-formatted-external-hard-disk
PS: Format this drive after data recovery and see whether this drive could be used as before again.
Save all important drive data on different places from now on.
 

zeriasis

Distinguished
Jan 28, 2013
205
1
18,685
Thank you guys for your answers. I now have more information and I'm a little worried what it means. I plugged the adapter back into the external hdd and left it plugged into my computer via usb. After a while of it being plugged in I came to my computer and it showed up on my computer. I opened it up all my files and folders where in the main folder, but every folder I opened was empty and every file I tried to open said it was no longer accessible due to the file might have been deleted or no longer located there. Does this help anything or make it worse? It is also not showing up on my computer any more.