Solved Error when trying to access external hard drive.

[FloAmi]

Every time I try to access it, it says "G:\ is not accessible. Access is denied." I tried looking this up, and I couldn't find a solution that has worked for me. I have tried the right clicking --> Properties --> Advanced --> Owner --> Edit --> Change Owner, but it just gave me this error next:

"Unable to set new owner to LaCie (G: ). Access is denied."

I tried the elevated command prompt takeown as well and it gave me access denied as well. Is there any way I can fix this? Or, if I have to format it, is there a free program I can use to get the files off of it after? Most of it is things I can get again (like shows that I can rerip from my dvds), but there are some things that I can't get again and absolutely need to save (old, personal videos, images, and documents for one). But I can't afford to buy another hard drive or buy an expensive program to get the files off either...

 

[Paul Black]

Hi FloAmi,

Have you tried plugging the EHDD into another computer and seeing if it works in that one?
What does it say about the EHDD (if anything) in Disk Management, perhaps you could post a screenshot!

Did you see this and try it:
Take Ownership & Grant Permissions for Entire Hard Drive

I hope this helps!

 

[FloAmi]

I actually did find a way - I had to make a second Admin account (which was weird as my main account is the admin account) and that let me access it. As for what Disk management says:

Imgur: The magic of the Internet

But I'm not sure this is true, as when I try to access certain folders off of the drive, it says it's not available and needs to reformat. Then when I say no it gives me this error:

Imgur: The magic of the Internet

Does this mean the files are corrupted? Will I have to completely reformat the HDD for it to work again?

 

[Ranger4]

FloAmi. Could you please supply a screen shot of Disc Management with the external Hard Drive connected so we can see what is what on that drive. To capture a screen shot & upload it to this Forum, follow this Tutorial.

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

The Tutorial also has a link on how to upload the screen capture.

 

[FloAmi]

This is it. The external is LaCie, under Disk 1.

 

[samuria]

The error is saying file is corrupted you need to run chkdsk on the drive

 

[FloAmi]

It says it can't run the chkdsk on the external because the type of file system is RAW?

 

[Paul Black]

Hi FloAmi,

You might find this useful:
UPDATED How To Fix: External Disk Drive Suddenly Became RAW

I hope this helps!

 

[FloAmi]

Thank you! I will try this and report back the results.

 

[FloAmi]

So I have tried this method but with no success. I went through the tutorial as far as I could, but it appears that there might be some physical, unseen damage to the HDD that is stopping me. It is an older one, so I should have figured that this was it giving out on me. Thank you all for your help, though! For now, though, I think it's best though that I look into an affordable way to recover the files. Again, thank you all for all of your help! I'll definitely remember this advice if a situation like this ever arrives again in the future.