External hard drive unreadable

[Janet]

My computer cannot detect my USB external hard drive. Before I could see the
drive from 'My Computer'. I have been trying to find a solution other than
take it to a Disk Recovery Service that would cost $500 and up. I have
rebooted my computer, remove and reinstalled the driver. When I ran Disk
Management, it said the the disk is unknown and unreadable. I have Windows
Vista Ultimate. I would like to able to recover my files from that hard
drive and move it to my c:\ drive.

Any suggestions is greatly appreciated.

 

[Malke]

My computer cannot detect my USB external hard drive. Before I could see the
drive from 'My Computer'. I have been trying to find a solution other than
take it to a Disk Recovery Service that would cost $500 and up. I have
rebooted my computer, remove and reinstalled the driver. When I ran Disk
Management, it said the the disk is unknown and unreadable. I have Windows
Vista Ultimate. I would like to able to recover my files from that hard
drive and move it to my c:\ drive.

Is the drive readable on another computer? That is your first
troubleshooting step.


Malke

 

[Janet]

I tried it on other computers (a Windows 2000 and a Windows XP) but the
external drive is empty. Another thing, the external hard drive has 500 GB
but in Windows XP it only has 109 GB and in Windows 2000 it has 39 MB used
files and 669 MB free. I haven't had the chance to use Disk Management in
Windows 2000 or Windows XP. I will do that right now.

 

[Janet]

I'm sorry....The drive is not readable to my other computers (Win 2000 and
Win XP) nor could Disk Management cannot detect the drives. Although 'Disk
Storage' from 'Device Manager' can detect the hard drive.

 

[Malke]

I'm sorry....The drive is not readable to my other computers (Win 2000 and
Win XP) nor could Disk Management cannot detect the drives. Although 'Disk
Storage' from 'Device Manager' can detect the hard drive.

If the drive is not readable from other computers, then you know the
fault lies with the drive and not Vista. You didn't give any details
about the external drive; i.e., whether this is a drive you put in a
drive enclosure yourself or a commercial product such as a Western
Digital MyBook.

The next troubleshooting step is to remove the hard drive from the
enclosure and attach to another computer. The object of this exercise is
to determine if the hard drive is faulty or the drive enclosure is
faulty. Obviously if this is a hard drive you put in a drive enclosure,
this will be easy to do. If this is a commercial product, you may wish
to speak to the mftr.'s tech support before cracking the case and
removing the drive.

If the drive is readable outside of the case, just put it in another
enclosure if you wish to keep it. If the drive is unreadable, it has
probably died. You can test it with a hard drive diagnostic utility but
please be aware that if the drive is physically damaged, every time you
spin it up you are taking a chance of destroying data. If the data is
crucial, you should send it to a professional data recovery company like
Drive Savers (my preference) or Seagate Data Recovery. General prices
run from $500USD on up. Drive Savers recovered all the data on a failed
laptop drive for one of my clients and it cost $2,700. He thought it was
worth the money; only you know what your data is worth. I understand
that some insurance companies are now covering data recovery charges so
check with yours.

Drive Savers - http://www.drivesavers.com
Seagate Data Recovery Services - https://www.seagatedatarecovery.com/


Malke

 

[Janet]

Thank you for your advice. What I have is a Western Digital My Book Premium
500 GB external hard drive. Yesterday, my husband took the external HDD
apart and tried to install it in one of the computers that we have. He said
that he thinks the HDD is broken. So I don't have any other alternative but
to send it to a data recovery specialist.

Again, thanks for your help.