Guys i have a similar problem but unlike the problem above my partition magic software does not read my external HD.. The device manager shows the HD is working properly.. and the disk manager shows DISK1 unknown and not initialized.. i m giving screen shot for both of them.. My external HD is WD 1TB HD.. it does not matter if i lose the data..but i want the HD to work[ATTACH][/ATTACH]
I had a Seagate drive fail suddenly last week -- a lot like the situation you described, and neither the Seagate nor the WD drive diagnostics even see the drive when it's in an external drive caddy. When I connect it to an internal drive cable, I get a SMART error and the PC hangs on the boot.
Have also tried Minitool Partition Wizard and some other data recovery apps, which CAN see the external drive, but they can't find or recover any partitions.
Suggest you check with Minitool as they offer a free trial of a data recovery app that might work for you.
This is the first time in years that I've had a drive fail and NONE of the data recovery apps have been able to find anything on the drive.
I've resorted to sending it off to a local data recovery service and am awaiting a quote.
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