My external WD 300 GB HD is not being recognized by laptop and asking to format

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kvsk51

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Jul 8, 2015
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My external WD 300 GB HD is not being recognized when connected to the laptop. It asks to be reformatted. After searching on this forum I tired chkdsk h: /x from the command prompt and I get the following error when connected to the laptop.

It returned:
The type of file system is FAT32.
An error occurred while reading the file application table (FAT 1).
An error occurred while reading the file application table (FAT 2).
There are no readable file application tables (FAT).

I do not want to format the disk as I have a lot of data that i do not want to lose.

Have any one found a solution to this. If so please help. Thanks a lot.

 
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rforce

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Nov 26, 2007
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The problem is likely a physical issue with the drive. It could be the PCB, heads or surface that are the root cause. Your best best is to contact a local data recovery lab for assistance.

You definitely don't want to format and you should never run chkdsk on a drive that isn't fully backed up...it only makes things worse.
 
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D_Know_WD

D_Know_WD

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Jul 30, 2014
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Hi there kvsk51,

Sorry that you are facing some issues with your WD drive. :(
You need to go to Disk Management and check how is the drive recognized over there. In case the drive has no partitions(unallocated), I guess you need to use some partition recovery tool. Usually, drives lose their partitions as a result of unsafe ejection(if we assume the drive is healthy).
After that, you can test the drive with WD's Data Lifeguard Diagnostic tool in order to check out its health status: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=Mbk5Wk
Something simple as just using a different USB cable will not hurt as well. :)

Let me know how this goes,
D_Know_WD
 
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rforce

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With all due respect, the advice to run recovery software and diagnostic programs on a drive that might be failing is a recipe for disaster. I, way too frequently, see technicians follow this path with their client's data resulting is more costly recoveries or completely unrecoverable damage.

@kvsk51, if you value your data, seek professional assistance. If you want to try it on your own, do it as safely as possible, starting be getting a full sector-by-sector clone of the drive.
 
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D_Know_WD

D_Know_WD

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Of course, using professional help is one's safest bet for recovering some data.
You can't be sure whether the drive has physical issues like: damaged heads, PCB, etc. From the OP's post, you simply get the information that the HDD requires format. The most probable cause for that format prompt are damaged partitions which, most of the times, could be recovered with partition recovery tools.
Also, you have no information about how the drive appears under Disk Management.

I agree with you on the testing part. Yet, I have mentioned that he can test the drive after the data/partition recovery process, not before that. :)

Cheers,
D_Know_WD :)
 
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rforce

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You are on the right track but, whether it is the diagnostic or the data/partition recovery, both can be the death of the drive before a single sector is ever copied off. No data recovery software should ever be run against the original drive. Instead, they should be run against a sector-by-sector clone.

Although we do see it on rare occasions where the only issue is a damaged FAT (or other file system tables), 99 times out of 100, it is because the drive is having issues reading the sectors within the FAT (or other file system tables).
 
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