Unallocated External Hard Drive

[Guest]

Hello...

I have been using an external hard drive (250GB) to back up my work on a
day-to-day basis.

A couple of days ago I started my computer up as per normal but my External
Hard drive was not shown in My Computer. I checked out the status through
disk manager and it is now shown as 'Unallococated' with no drive letter.

This has all my important documents on it and I really need to find out how
I can get access to the documents and make the drive useable again.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Many thanks, Ridders

 

[GHalleck]

Hello...

I have been using an external hard drive (250GB) to back up my work on a
day-to-day basis.

A couple of days ago I started my computer up as per normal but my External
Hard drive was not shown in My Computer. I checked out the status through
disk manager and it is now shown as 'Unallococated' with no drive letter.

This has all my important documents on it and I really need to find out how
I can get access to the documents and make the drive useable again.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Many thanks, Ridders

By definition, having a "backup" implies that there are at least two
copies in existence, viz., a "source" and a "copy". Once a copy has
been made and the source is deleted, then there is really no "backup".
Keep this in mind as it is the basis for having a good backup policy.

Anyway, what type of external hard drive is it --- USB, Firewire or
SATA? Tried any of the other options? Tested it on another computer?
Tried a different external enclosure or hookup? Should these attempts
fail, then download a recovery application but be prepared to use a
professional outfit and pay the money for retrieval of the important
files.

 

[Guest]

By definition, having a "backup" implies that there are at least two
copies in existence, viz., a "source" and a "copy". Once a copy has
been made and the source is deleted, then there is really no "backup".
Keep this in mind as it is the basis for having a good backup policy.

Anyway, what type of external hard drive is it --- USB, Firewire or
SATA? Tried any of the other options? Tested it on another computer?
Tried a different external enclosure or hookup? Should these attempts
fail, then download a recovery application but be prepared to use a
professional outfit and pay the money for retrieval of the important
files.

Hello...

Thanks for your reply. I understand where you're coming from in relation to
the true nature of a backup and in essence, I guess this means I simply 'held
larger files on an external drive' as opposed to back up in the true sense of
the word.

I've connected the drive other computers and it's the same story, no showing
in My Computer.

I've downloaded testdisk.exe and run this...this shows that the files are on
the drive, but I have no way of accessing them. It is a USB connection (which
is the only connection option) and as mentioned previously, has been
faultless until recently.

Is there no way of getting this drive into an 'allocated' state? If I add a
partition, will the files on the drive be transferred to the partition, or
simply lost?

Your help is much appreciated.

Regards,

Ridders

 

[Anna]

Hello...

Thanks for your reply. I understand where you're coming from in relation
to
the true nature of a backup and in essence, I guess this means I simply
'held
larger files on an external drive' as opposed to back up in the true sense
of
the word.

I've connected the drive other computers and it's the same story, no
showing
in My Computer.

I've downloaded testdisk.exe and run this...this shows that the files are
on
the drive, but I have no way of accessing them. It is a USB connection
(which
is the only connection option) and as mentioned previously, has been
faultless until recently.

Is there no way of getting this drive into an 'allocated' state? If I add
a
partition, will the files on the drive be transferred to the partition, or
simply lost?

Your help is much appreciated.

Regards,

Ridders

Ridders:
First of all, do you have any clue whatsoever what might have caused this
problem? Was your system operating properly - including your USB external
HDD - and then this happened "out of the blue"? Did you make any
hardware/software changes, modifications just before this problem began? I
know you said that external HDD had been operating "faultless until
recently". I assume you mean until this problem arose, right?

At this point it probably would be best if you could remove the HDD from its
enclosure and install it as a internal secondary HDD in your machine and see
if the data on the drive could be accessed through that means. If you're
working with a commercial USB unit (not an enclosure that you purchased and
then installed a HDD in the enclosure) this could be difficult. Needless to
say by doing so it would surely void the warranty if that's any
consideration at this point.

But if you could install the disk as a secondary drive in your PC, you might
(hopefully) access its data that way. This assumes, of course, that the
problem is a defective USB enclosure (more common than you might think) and
not with the HDD itself.

Download the HDD diagnostic utility from the manufacturer of the disk and
test it out. I know you've used that testdisk program, but use the
diagnostic from the disk's manufacturer anyway.

If the disk is non-defective and its data is potentially accessible you just
might be able to access it while it's connected as an internal secondary HDD
in your system. You could also consider using one or more of the myriad
"data recovery programs" available. As a last resort, you might have to use
a commercial data recovery service as GHalleck has indicated. Needless to
say an expensive proposition.
Anna