External hard drive unusable with computer but is working with phone

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elias.zsombor0212

May 25, 2018
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I have a 4TB Lacie Porsche Design external hard drive, it is designed for mac but I've been using it with windows.
So I've had multiple issues with it, but recently I've accidentally dropped it, and now I can't access it from my pc.

It is formatted for NTFS and when I connect it to my computer, in "My computer" the name, and letter of the hard drive appears, but not the blue bar for storage space. When I try to right or left click it, windows explorer crashes.
If it is connected to my pc when I open disk management, it loads forever, but when I unplug it, it loads my internal drive partitions in a second.
Running chkdsk in cmd on the hard drive when connected, result in the cmd window freezing.
But everytime when I connect it to my android phone via an otg usb connection it works as it should. I'm able to access everything and it also looks like the chkdsk tried to create some files, because there are 2 new folders probably releated to that.
If possible, it would be great to somehow fix it, but if not, then I have to deal with copying ~3.5TB of data to my phone, then to a different hard drive.
 
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Hi guys. So I had a ton of stuff going on lately, but I finally was able to save ~95% of the files from my broken hard drive, the rest was unfortunately corrupted and couldn't be copied. After than I went into disk management on my mac and managed to format the hard drive to ntfs again. Then I disconnected the hard drive from my computer, and booted up windows 10. Maybe this is not releated to the issue, but even though the hard drive was unplugged, on bootup my pc ran a checkdisk on one of the hard drives. When everything fully loaded I connected the previously broken hdd and it worked! This all happened yesterday evening, so I didn't really had a chance to test it, but I've changed the drive letter, and copied a few small files onto...
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asoroka

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Apr 19, 2009
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Dropping a HDD is never good news, especially if it was running at the time.

The fact that you can access it via your phone is good news.

Just checking are you using the same cable both times?
Is it the same problem regardless of which PC USB port you use?

Can you try another PC?

Does it show anything if you start diskpart.exe (in command window).

LIST DISK

it should show as a disk number (say 3 for example)

SELECT DISK 3
LIST PARTITION

at this point lets stop because we don't want to trash the data on the disk.
I am assuming that you don't want to try re-partitioning and reformatting
 
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elias.zsombor0212

May 25, 2018
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Yes I've used the same cable both times, exept of course I need an adapter to use it with the phone.

The problem is the same on all ports, exept usb 3.0 ports, because for some reason after about 1 minute it dissconnects if I use that one, but this is probably not releated to the issue as, this has been the case for over a year now.

And I have tried it on an other pc already, both on 3.0 and 2.0 ports and the result was the same as on mine.

I will try diskpart.exe when I get home tomorrow and comment the results. Thank you for helping me this fast with my issue.
 
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elias.zsombor0212

May 25, 2018
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So, as a response to seagate_surfer, I have contacted support, they told me to check with different cables and to send them pictures of the hard drive, but in the end, they told me, all I can do is pay for repairs or get e new one, as my warranty expired about 4 months ago.

I have managed to connect the hard drive to a mac computer, and it works! So I have saved most of my important files, but some jpg and mp4 files were corrupted. On the mac it appears to be formatted to ntfs, but there is an additional ~100mb partition that I'm unable to identify. At this point my goal is to finish saving some of my files and then to reformat the hard drive to exfat or ntfs. As I wasn't able to do basically anything a windows I will use the mac to format the hard drive, hopefully it will work, and I will make sure to inform you with the results.

And as a response to asoroka, I don't exactly understand what a usb enclosure is and how to use it. I will research it later, thanks for the suggestion.
 
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asoroka

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Apr 19, 2009
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I mean to open up your external hard drive case and to remove the actual hard drive.
You can then buy an empty external drive case (similar to your Lacie) but cheaper and put your hdd into it.

Alternately you can take the disk and mount it as an internal hdd in your PC.
The idea was to isolate the problem to the disk(seagate) or the enclosure (Lacie).

I am glad that you can read it from your MAC.

Will be interested to know how it reformats.
 
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elias.zsombor0212

May 25, 2018
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I understand now, thank you for making it clear. I have checked previously, but unfortunately there are no screws or anything similar on the case, but I will see what I can do.
 
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elias.zsombor0212

May 25, 2018
6
0
20
Hi guys. So I had a ton of stuff going on lately, but I finally was able to save ~95% of the files from my broken hard drive, the rest was unfortunately corrupted and couldn't be copied. After than I went into disk management on my mac and managed to format the hard drive to ntfs again. Then I disconnected the hard drive from my computer, and booted up windows 10. Maybe this is not releated to the issue, but even though the hard drive was unplugged, on bootup my pc ran a checkdisk on one of the hard drives. When everything fully loaded I connected the previously broken hdd and it worked! This all happened yesterday evening, so I didn't really had a chance to test it, but I've changed the drive letter, and copied a few small files onto it, created folders, renamed files and everything seems to be working alright.

I'm still not sure what the issue was, but basically try using a different os if you've got the same problem. And reformat when you are ready with saving your files.

Thanks you all for helping me with great tips, and I will be more careful handling hard drives next time ;)
 
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