Ext. HDD detected but not accessible

[Yigas]

Hello everyone,

Earlier yesterday, I formatted my computer. After that, my everything was in Ext. HDD. I started to get things from it. I got most important things firstly and I said I'll resume it later. Process was done and so I was not doing anything with ext. HDD. After that I dropped external HDD by accident and disconnected the usb cable... I wanted to make sure if its still working after the drop so I reconnected it. PC detected my ext. HDD but it did not appear on 'My Computer' and 'autorun' did not show up. HDD light was always bright and when I connect it to PC I hear the sound. After million tries, just for one time a 'autorun' showed up and it appeared on 'My Computer' but I could not get my stuff from it because I could not open any picture/music/document on it, it stopped working. But it was saying 800+ gb left in it and I could open the HDD and saw my files/pictures/music/documents/videos so I was pretty sure my stuff still is in it.

After that I checked few things and realized it shows all disk 'unallocated' How can it be possible, I opened it once? I formatted my PC Disk C and it did not work after that, too. So my main question is, how can I solve this problem without losing and picture/video/music/document in it? I really need everything in it. All my 4 year work is in it. Hope we can find a way. Thanks a lot.

Note1: Should I try to take actual disk out of the case and plug it in via SATA to motherboard? Can it be a solution? (maybe case is damaged but the disk inside is fine?)
Note2: I read something, if I don't overwrite it I may have chance to recover the data from it. Is that true? Will it let me to get 'ALL' of them? If it is, how am I gonna do it?
Note3: I'm thinking to send my ext. HDD (WD 1021: too old) to WD service in Turkey (if there is) Can they solve it without any loss of documents, thank you.

I don't really care about Ext. HDD to work but I need all of the stuff in it. Thanks again.

With my all respect;
Yigas

 

[CKWD]

Hello Yigas!

I'm sorry for the issue, but it sounds like the drive has endured external damage and it is technology that could break. Moreover, it was suddenly disconnected and unsafely. :/

If the light on the drive was continuous it usually means it's “thinking” and is stuck trying to load/mount. Yes, your data can't just be erased from it so it is there. The drive is showing as Unallocated, as its file system has been damaged. You have been able to make it show once, but again couldn't access anything, as it is Unallocated.

I see this is a WD external but which model? Is t an Elements or Ultra or a My Book? What is its total capacity? If it's portable, like a My Passport Ultra, I would not recommend breaking it out of the external enclosure, as this voids its warranty and the interior in the external is more different and the bare drive can't just be connected to the system directly.

You should not reformat or initialize it, or write any data on it as that rewrites the data you want from it.

My advice would be to first try the drive while booting to a Live CD of Linux-based OS. If the drive is not accessible then, you should probably consider professional data recovery help, WD has partners in the field. The link is for the European area (you mentioned Turkey):

Support Answers

Best of luck and post back!

CK_WD