Help! Cannot access hard drive "Needs to be formatted"

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Enderstream

Enderstream

Honorable
Oct 26, 2013
256
0
10,810
My external Hard drive power port broke, so i removed the drive from the enclosure and connected it directly to my motherboard, Now i can see the drive but i cant access it, Then says-

"You need to format the disk in drive before you can use it.
Do you want to format it?"

"This volume does not contain a recognized file system. Please make sure that all required file system drivers are loaded and that the volume is not corrupted."

 
Solution
D_Know_WD
Unfortunately, the model is most probably hardware encrypted. If you reformat the drive, you will remove the encryption but you will loose your data.
In case the data is really important, you will need to contact a data recovery company.

It may be useful if you can provide a picture of the enclosure. Also, you can check whether there is a product number on the back of the enclosure.

You can try running some data recovery software and see whether you will be able to retrieve some data: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-1644496/lost-data-recovery.html

D_Know_WD
Sort by date Sort by votes
D_Know_WD

D_Know_WD

Judicious
Jul 30, 2014
6,633
3
35,960
Hi there Enderstream,

How does it appear under Disk Management? What is the model of the drive? It is possible that it has some kind of hardware encryption. If this is the case, you will not be able to access the data in case the drive is outside the enclosure.
Apart from that, I guess you can try to access it with some partition/data recovery tool and see whether you will be able to recover something.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Enderstream

Enderstream

Honorable
Oct 26, 2013
256
0
10,810


It's actually a western digital hard drive, Cant remember which model but as soon as i removed it from the enclosure it started showing the message, is there anyway i can remove the encryption? Or get the data off it?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
D_Know_WD

D_Know_WD

Judicious
Jul 30, 2014
6,633
3
35,960
Unfortunately, the model is most probably hardware encrypted. If you reformat the drive, you will remove the encryption but you will loose your data.
In case the data is really important, you will need to contact a data recovery company.

It may be useful if you can provide a picture of the enclosure. Also, you can check whether there is a product number on the back of the enclosure.

You can try running some data recovery software and see whether you will be able to retrieve some data: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-1644496/lost-data-recovery.html

D_Know_WD
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom