external hard drive need to format error

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blondiforshure

Reputable
Dec 12, 2014
2
0
4,510
I have similar problem with my external hard drive. Here what happened:
- I was using it in one laptop for a long time.
- Today I didn't do "Safely remove" option and reconnected to other laptop.
- When I finished using it, I than reconnected to the previous laptop.
I didn't had problem with entering the files on my external hard drive.
- The error occurred when I tried to save changes on (Excel and Word) documents.
- Next thing I did I unplugged it.
- After 5 minutes I tried to connect to it when I received the error "external hard drive need to format".
- I selected "Cancel".

Now I can't enter my files.

Can someone explain to me how to recover my files from my external hard drive?

Thank you in advance.
 
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SuperSoph_WD

SuperSoph_WD

Glorious
Jul 30, 2014
6,758
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Hey there, blondiforshure!

This is very unfortunate.
I'd suggest to try to go to Disk Management and check the drive's status there.
[Right-click on My Computer > Manage > Computer Management > Storage > Disk Management ]
Try to assign a different drive letter to your external HDD.
Here's a tutorial how you can do that: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=I6iuyl

If this doesn't work, you could also try this:
Right-click on the drive in Disk Management and select Properties > Click on Volumes > Select Populate

If none of these work, plug the external on a different computer to see how it will react there.

Good luck! Hope this helped! :)
SuperSoph_WD
 
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B

blondiforshure

Reputable
Dec 12, 2014
2
0
4,510
Hi SuperSoph_WD,

I did as you suggested but it still can't open.

Any other solution? :??:



 
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SuperSoph_WD

SuperSoph_WD

Glorious
Jul 30, 2014
6,758
3
45,960

Hi again, blondiforshure!

Another thing I can suggest you to do is uninstall all USB drivers in Device Manager.
Under Universal Serial Bus controllers, you need to manually uninstall every driver there.
Afterwards you just need to restart the PC and Windows updates should take care of the drivers automatically.
Here's a link that might help: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc725782.aspx#bkmk_1

You can also check this thread for ideas on how to recover files:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/291895-32-best-data-recovery-software

Keep me posted with the troubleshooting. Hope this helped! :)
SuperSoph_WD
 
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