External Hard Drive Problem

[cybersa]

I have Seagate Expansion 500 GB External Hard Disk.
Currently it was not working.

When i tried to connect the drive to pc or laptop through usb,led is blinking and i can able to feel the hard drive running.

But it was not showing on My Computer.
Tried it on PC and Laptop but same problem.

Anyway to recover the files?

 

[argedion]

Give Testdisk a go

 

[cybersa]

Give Testdisk a go

Thanks for your reply.
It is not detecting my drive.

 

[mikedt]

When you say connected "through USB" to the PC or laptop, is that external box one that the hard disk is mounted in? Have you tried a different USB interface?

If you can, try to get the drive connected to a PCs own disk interface, which will be either SATA or IDE. Via USB the PC is not directly controlling the drive, and you may not be able to tell what's truly wrong with the drive, as it might just be a duff USB interface. If it's connected to a PCs own disk interface and the BIOS is not seeing the drive, then the drive definitely has a hardware problem. In which case you need professional data recovery, many $100s dollars. It's not making repeated ticking or clicking noises is it? - because that's definitely a drive hardware problem(click of death).

I had a external drive that wouldn't work, could hear and feel it spinning and the light was flashing, but the computer wasn't seeing it. It was just a duff box and USB interface, replaced it and all OK after that.

 

[lunatic59]

I'm with Mike on this one. If when you plug it in, nothing happens as in no "installing driver" pop-up notification, or phantom drive letter appears, it's most likely the interface and not the drive itself.

It could be as simple as a bad cable or broken connector on the drive.

If, however, you hold it to your ear to the drive while plugged in and you hear a persistent soft click or thump, let us know where we can send flowers.

There is one trick you might try if you are getting the "click-of-death". Take the drive and put it in a plastic bag and stick it in the freezer for 1/2 an hour. Then try and mount it. If it works get your files off fast. I do have to warn you that this will only possible work 20% of the time so don't get your hopes up. Professional data recover is where you need to go after that.

 

[kate]

Does the drive show up in Disk Management? Right click My Computer, click Manage, go to Disk Management.

It will show every drive connected to your computer that it can detect, even ones that don't show up under My Computer (for example unformatted drives).

 

[cybersa]

I had a external drive that wouldn't work, could hear and feel it spinning and the light was flashing, but the computer wasn't seeing it. It was just a duff box and USB interface, replaced it and all OK after that.

I had the same problem as above.
But i tried different usb cables but no luck.

 

[mikedt]

I had the same problem as above.
But i tried different usb cables but no luck.

Ok, have you tried a different USB interface? Inside the USB hard drive enclosure there's a little controller board that converts USB into SATA or IDE, which connects to the hard drive itself. It's the controller that might be duff. That's what I had, wasn't the USB cable that was faulty. Put the drive in a new enclosure and that fixed it. Cost equivalent of $10 USD.

 

[davoid]

It might be that the drive needs more power than it can receive from a single USB port. You could try a Y-shaped usb cable that takes power from two USB ports. It worked on my external harddrive.

One of these:

StarTech 3 feet USB Y Cable for External Hard Drive - USB A to mini B: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

 

[cybersa]

I think Hard drive is dead.

I Removed the external cover.
Hard Drive was connected with Connecter(USB to Drive).Then i removed the connecter.

Then i directly connected it to computer through SATA cable.
Computer showing as Local Disk(F: ) but i can't able to open it.
Then i tried with HDD Regenerate software.
It shows lots of bad sector and i can't able to repair it.

 

[mikedt]

Sure if you want your data back now, next stop is DriveSavers.
http://www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com
Very expensive.

 

[Rukbat]

ddrescue.

 

[cybersa]

I tried some software.
But it taking long time to recover.