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External Harddrive dropped, unrecognized by Windows; appears in Disk Management, spins

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  • Disk Management
  • Hard Drives
  • External Hard Drive
Last response: in Storage
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September 23, 2014 8:02:59 PM

An old 1TB ext HDD of mine has been broken for the longest time. My cat (in his infancy) pulled the cord of it and it was resting on a desk, it fell and immediately turned off.
I recently bought a cheap HDD dock because I decided to go through old HDD's and decided to give the broken one a try, so I carefully removed all the casing and saw that the main damage was done to the part of the casing that operated as a DC adapter/firewire port.
I removed that piece too, and was left with a regular HDD.
Today I popped in the HDD after being certain that other HDD's were being read (they were), and it was never recognized by Windows and didnt appear on My Computer. I could hear the drive spinning, but couldnt see it anywhere.
I read somewhere to check in Disk Management to see if you could find the drive, and it appears there as Disk 2. However, therein I am prompted to initialize the drive as either a MBR (Master Boot Record) or GUID Partition.
I didnt select either, and cancelled the operation, safely removed the hardware, and posted here.
What should I do? Do I have to contact a professional to physically repair the drive? Should I select one of those options?
Thank you for your time.

More about : external harddrive dropped unrecognized windows appears disk management spins

September 23, 2014 8:13:56 PM

If there is nothing of value on the hard drive, putting a MBR partition (<2TB) or GUID Partition (>2TB) is appropriate. This will allow you to read the drive.

It looks like you got lucky, the damage was to the case, and not the drive.
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September 23, 2014 8:21:18 PM

ronintexas said:
If there is nothing of value on the hard drive, putting a MBR partition (<2TB) or GUID Partition (>2TB) is appropriate. This will allow you to read the drive.

It looks like you got lucky, the damage was to the case, and not the drive.


I should have elaborated. My fault entirely.
I do want to access the files on the drive, and I was hoping one of those options would allow me to do so.
Judging from what you've said, that appears out of the question.
Am I SOL for recovering the data? Is the only option to contact a repair professional?
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September 23, 2014 8:27:32 PM

Most external hard drives (not USB enclosures - retail external hard drives) have a controller that communicates with the drive so that it is accessible on most computer systems. This interface puts a different partition that is usually unrecognizable unless you use that interface.

If you can find an exact model of your hard drive on ebay - you may be able to switch the drives and get it to work....
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September 24, 2014 12:37:18 AM

Hi there flymolo93,

I would agree with ronintexas and say that it might be possible to get to your data if you put the drive in the exact same casing it was before. You can not be sure though.
Another thing is that some external HDDs have hardware encryption. You might want to check that out too.
I would say that you safest bet is a data recovery company.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD
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September 24, 2014 12:48:36 AM

Thanks guys. Ill give it a shot. I'd like to pick both of you as the solution but ronin was first.
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