New
#1
External HDD Suddenly Stops Working (Well, Sort Of)...................
ok, i'll make this short, my friend accidently unplugged my external Western Digital 1TB HDD drive from my laptop while I was using it, as well as knocking out the power cord simultaneously. i dont recall actually using anything on the drive or transferring files to/from at the time this happened. But in any case, i plugged it back in and it just wouldnt let me read from it anymore in Computer. The drive's icon was still there but wouldnt let me open it in either Explorer, Total Commander, or Directory Opus. Explorer froze up several times and i had to kill the process. and a few other apps i started attempted to access something on the drive and froze when they couldnt do so. I then removed the drive when Safe Eject failed to work. after plugging it back in the drive's icon disapeared from Explorer entirely. I also noticed that the driver for the drive disappeared from Device Manager, whereas it was there before.
I have tried plugging it into several other PCs, with varying results. In any case I can sometimes view the folders/files in this situation, and can sometimes open them. But at other times i cant. and even when i can the drive takes an unusually long time to respond.
I have also tried booting into a Live Linux distribution from USB key and then plugging in the drive, and then attempting to copy them over to another external HDD that i also have plugged in. But the drive access is extremely slow and it often freezes up in the middle of trying to copy. This is unusual of Linux, as stable of an OS as it is, i often use it to fix problems that i cant fix in Windows, like virus/spyware/malware removal. this leads me to believe that the problem lies with the drive.
I'm just trying to recover the files without having to format, as i have alot of important data on it i cant afford to lose. i basically want to copy over the data to another HDD so i can format it (after the fact) as NTFS, hopefully then it will work properly. Also, can i do a file scan check of some kind on the HDD? i know there is an option for that if i go to the drive's properties, but i cant seem to access it from either my laptop or any other PC without Explorer crashing.
Thanks for any help!