Data Recovery: unallocated and not initialized

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Bloynoys

Reputable
Dec 3, 2015
1
0
4,510
Hey guys and gals!

I have read every article and every forum it feels like for this issue and no dice so far.

Background:
I have a 2 TB external WD my book that is probably 6 years old. I had just done clean install of Windows so all my backups were on this drive. Couple days into it, I was clicking through the drive and the computer locked up on me. Totally frozen, so had to hard shut down the computer. When I got back into Windows my drive was gone.

Details:
In disk management and device manager it does show up (with correct storage size). However it says it is unallocated and not initialized.

Tried programs to rebuild partition table. No dice.

Tried test disk and photo rec, nothing.

Wanting to try power data recover or recova but cannot because it cannot see the drive.

Getting towards the place where disk savers may be only option but waned to come here first before I have to put an exact dollar amount on all my backups for 15 years.

Thanks!!
 
Solution
Boogieman_WD
Hi Bloynoys.

This really sounds truly unfortunate. Sorry to hear about the issues you're having with your external drive. Have you had any problems with it, prior to this situation? Any unusual sounds coming from the HDD, hangs/freezes of your system, slow read/write speed, etc?
First I'd suggest that you try the drive with a different USB cable (preferably shorter than 12"), even if it's a long shot that this would be causing the issue - it's still worth a try. You could also try the drive with a different computer, to see if the same thing happens.
Usually in such situations it's never recommended that you test the drive and you should use it only for data recovery options. Unfortunately (as you've already noticed) it's pretty...
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Boogieman_WD

Boogieman_WD

Judicious
Jul 31, 2014
6,050
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35,960
Hi Bloynoys.

This really sounds truly unfortunate. Sorry to hear about the issues you're having with your external drive. Have you had any problems with it, prior to this situation? Any unusual sounds coming from the HDD, hangs/freezes of your system, slow read/write speed, etc?
First I'd suggest that you try the drive with a different USB cable (preferably shorter than 12"), even if it's a long shot that this would be causing the issue - it's still worth a try. You could also try the drive with a different computer, to see if the same thing happens.
Usually in such situations it's never recommended that you test the drive and you should use it only for data recovery options. Unfortunately (as you've already noticed) it's pretty difficult to recover data from a drive, which is shown as not initialized, as most programs can't detect it. Anyways, you might be able to find something useful among the suggestions from those 2 links: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-1644496/lost-data-recovery.html and http://pcsupport.about.com/od/filerecovery/tp/free-file-recovery-programs.htm. I'd also recommend that you try to access the HDD via Ubuntu Live USB/DVD, to see if it's properly recognized and if you can get to your files. And last, but not least, if worse comes to worst, perhaps the most reliable solution would be a professional one, such as a data recover company. You could check out this link: WD Data Recovery Partners.

Please keep me posted on your progress and let me know if you have any questions.
Boogieman_WD
 
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