External Hard Drive is not recognized and windows wants to initialize

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
S

spunkyfugu

Commendable
Sep 12, 2016
3
0
1,510
After returning from traveling, my external hard drive is not recognized by both my laptops. Windows wants to initialize the drive, and I don't want to lose any of my data. If I initialize it, should I do it as a MBR or GUID partition table? Which one will allow me to attempt to recover my files?
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
SuperSoph_WD

SuperSoph_WD

Glorious
Jul 30, 2014
6,758
3
45,960
Welcome to the TH Community, @spunkyfugu!

Did you by any chance accidentally dropped your external HDD? Have you tried using a different USB cable as well? You should know that mechanical hard drives are pretty sensitive and can easily get damaged. It looks like you are dealing with a corrupted file system. However, whether you use the GUID partition table or the MBR one depends on the capacity of your external hard drive. Both partition tables will reformat the drive and erase the data. You can definitely try using third-party data retrieving utility but it would be at your own risk! :( I'd strongly recommend you consider testing your drive using its manufacturer's brand-specific diagnostic utility first. It will help you determine the health and SMART stats of the HDD. If there are any SMART errors present, I'd advise you to get in touch with a professional data recovery company as they are your best bet on getting any of the files back.
If you manage to get access to your files, back them up immediately!

Keep me posted with the troubleshooting!
SuperSoph_WD
 
Upvote 1 Downvote
S

spunkyfugu

Commendable
Sep 12, 2016
3
0
1,510
SuperSoph,

Thanks for the reply! It's a Western Digital 500 GB, I think as for the size is concerned. I don't recall dropping it at all, that was one of my first thoughts as well. I do recall the usb not being plugged in all the way when I setup my laptop and turned it on. I don't know if that made a difference...
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
S

spunkyfugu

Commendable
Sep 12, 2016
3
0
1,510
Update:
SuperSoph,

I installed the drive diagnostic program from Western Digital, and ran it. It didn't see the hard drive either. Are there anymore options or am I out of luck?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom