external hard disk which is not displaying data stored in it

[sheena bansal]

Hi all. I have an external hard disk which is not displaying data stored in it. Please help.

On plugging the drive, it does not display in 'My Computer'.

Its a 2TB HD

 

[Ranger4]

Hi sheena bansal, welcome to the Forum.

Could provide a screen shot of Disc Management please. Make sure the external hard drive is plugged in beforehand. To post a screen shot of Disc Management follow this Forum tutorial. There is a link at the bottom telling you how to upload the screen shot.

Disk Management - Post a Screen Capture Image - Windows 7 Help Forums

 

[sheena bansal]

Hi Ranger4,

Please find the screenshot below:

 

[sheena bansal]

You can see that the device is connected,


also, it took some time, but the disk manager is now showing my device

 

[Paul Black]

Hi sheena bansal, welcome to Seven Forums,

What did you do to get it to show?

I know that if an external hard drive is quick big and it is the first time that you have connected/attached it, it can sometimes take a moment or two to appear in the Disc Management!

I hope this helps!

 

[sheena bansal]

Hi,

I just plugged it in and out 2-3 times and it showed up in disk management. But it still doesn't show in My computer

 

[Paul Black]

Hi sheena bansal,

I just plugged it in and out 2-3 times and it showed up in disk management.

Have you tried it in another USB port?
Have you tried it in another computer?
As I said previously, sometimes it can take a moment or two to appear.
Try refreshing My Computer when it is plugged in several times to see if it then appears.

I hope this helps!

 

[sheena bansal]

Yeah, i have tried it all. In other computers
In other ports. but still doesn't show the data. i tried searching for files in the subfolders by file name but nothing

Please help... this drive has a lot of backup files of my old pictures and collection from last few years.

 

[sheena bansal]

Hi,

I connected the drive using another cable and once i received the 'Eject safely' notification in right tray; i opened the disk management.
This is the screen I got.

Is this a good sign? Shall I click on something?

 

[Paul Black]

Hi sheena bansal,

Is this a good sign? Shall I click on something?

NO!!!

Don't initialize the disk, this will erase/delete ALL of the data on it. Initializing is only needed when a disk is brand new and hasn't been used.

Boot into Safe Mode and then attach the external HDD and see if it shows up in My Computer.

I hope this helps!

 

[sheena bansal]

Heyy!!

Thanks for the warning :O

As you said, I booted the system into safe mode.
Connected the drive
waited for good 10-15 minutes

however, it did not show up in my computer.

It behaved exactly the same as it is doing in normal mode. attached screenshots from safe mode.

 

[Paul Black]

Hi sheena bansal,

The external HDD is saying that it is not formatted and has no data on it!
It is also saying that external HDD it is a GPT Partition Style. GPT and MBR are two different HDD formats.
Does the external HDD show up in the Device Manager?
Is your computer running UEFI [Unified Extensible Firmware Interface] or BIOS [Basic Input/Output System]?
Did you use the computer you are using to format the external HDD and copy/backup your data to it?

I hope this helps!

 

[sheena bansal]

Hey, I have to logout for the day. But please try and help find a solution for this issue.

 

[sheena bansal]

Hi sheena bansal,


Is your computer running UEFI [Unified Extensible Firmware Interface] or BIOS [Basic Input/Output System]?

How to identify that?

‎

Hi sheena bansal,
Did you use the computer you are using to format the external HDD and copy/backup your data to it?

I hope this helps!

No I have got this system very recently. And I did not try to backup my data in any other system as well.

 

[Paul Black]

Hi sheena bansal,

Does the external HDD show up in the Device Manager?
Have you tried assigning a different letter [something like Z:\ for example] to the drive in Disk Management?
It could be that the master partition table [MBR] on the external HDD was deleted somehow!
Do you know how big your data on the exteral HDD is?

Maybe the way to go would be to try and recover the files/data using a third-party tool and then copy/move the files/data to another HDD. You could then format the external HDD [as NTFS] and then copy/move the files/data back to the external HDD. I have heard that EaseUS Partition Manager is very good for this, amongst others [although there is no guarantee], or using a Linux Live CD should allow you to access your files/data on the external HDD.

Perhaps other members have some ideas!

I hope this helps!

 

[sheena bansal]

Does the external HDD show up in the Device Manager?

Yes it does. Plz find the screenshot

 

[sheena bansal]

Is your computer running UEFI [Unified Extensible Firmware Interface] or BIOS [Basic Input/Output System]?

My system is running BIOS

 

[sheena bansal]

Does the external HDD show up in the Device Manager?

Yes it does!!

Have you tried assigning a different letter [something like Z:\ for example] to the drive in Disk Management?

How to do that?

Do you know how big your data on the exteral HDD is?

It should be approx 1.5 TB

 

[sheena bansal]

EaseUS Data recovery wizard shows this screen. But the issue is that I do not have another 2 TB drive to copy down my data

 

[sheena bansal]

This is what EaseUS Partition master displays.

Please suggest