External hard drive major issue.

Saxon_2

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Feb 9, 2017
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Hey all,

External hard drive with my backed up storage on it. I had it moved over so I could reformat my laptop and was going to place an image onto my desktop and reformatted laptop. I was able to move everything over however now when I go to load the external hard drive it's not reading it. On my laptop with windows 8 it won't load; if I pull up partition recovery/ file recovery/ disk management it lags the program and won't boot it. Sometimes it shows a drive in "my computer" however it won't allow me access to it nor can I get information. On the mac it doesn't read the drive either however I will get a pop up to click eject to disconnect the drive when plugging it in. On my desktop; where I've done a internal and external, it won't read the hard drive from ubuntu however my motherboard is recognizing the drive and informing me that it has issues and may crash.

Not really sure what to do at this point to recover the data; does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks
 
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R2D2_WD

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Jul 30, 2014
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Hi Saxon_2,

You have done good job trying to solve the issue. Using Linux OS was a really good idea. If you haven’t tried that, test the drive with another USB cable. Connect it to a Windows PC and run the Command Prompt as an Administrator. Use the chkdsk L: /r command where you must replace the L with the drive’s letter. Wait for the process to end and try to access the drive once again. If the same issue appears, there may be a drive problem. I would suggest you to use a data recovery tool and try to save the most important files. Check the suggestions below:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/267620-32-best-data-recovery-tools - a thread with some data recovery software suggestions
If you manage to save your files, download the drive manufacturer’s diagnostic tool and test the drive. If it appears in bad condition, I would advise you not to use in future. If the drive is under warranty, contact the seller.

Hope this helps
 

Saxon_2

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Feb 9, 2017
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I've actually tried with a different external hd enclosure and it's the same response. I've got a program running on my laptop right now trying to recover old delete files to see if that will pull anything. Going to try with the chckdisk on my friends computer but I just have no idea what the issue is so it's hard. Computer reads it but doesn't.
 

R2D2_WD

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Jul 30, 2014
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Unfortunately, some connectivity issues cause these kinds of problems. The drive is recognized, but not really usable. If is hard to tell which part of the drive is causing the trouble, but you should know that a damaged hard drive is nearly impossible to repair.
Please make sure all data is backed up before using the chkdsk command. If the drive is damaged, any intensive usage may cause even more trouble.
 
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