Failed external USB drive

r2015

I have a USB drive which I cannot read.


I took it out of it's enclosure and it is a Seagate SATA drive.


I put it into my spare computer as a second drive and it is recognised in the BIOS but is not recognised by Windows when windows finally boots. It took about 10 minutes for windows 7 to boot


Any suggestions or is it toast?


I booted the computer using a rufus DOS disk and of course it did not recognise it because it is an NTFS disk. However using FDISK it was recognised.


What do I need to get my files off this hard drive?

Moneymaker

Is the disc spinning?

I had one that seized. I opened it up and got the disc spinning for long enough to extract the data to another drive. (If you do this you must be really careful to minimise dust. After you've opened it, it can never be relied on again.)

r2015

Yes it spins

debitcardmayhem

A linux live distro or systemrescuecd perhaps ?
http://www.sysresccd.org/SystemRescueCd_Homepage

or Testdisk / Photorec http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download

Moneymaker

Hmm, doesn't sound promising. I've had a couple of Seagate drives overheat while I've been doing backups. Turned into door stops.

You could try data retrieval software but I'm not optimistic.

kwikbreaks

You should check to see if it shows up in the disk manager.

From My Computer (from the start menu or windows explorer) click manage then in the window that appears you should see disk manager near bottom left - click that.

It could be that you'll see the disk partition but with no drive letter or it could be that something has screwed up the partition table. You can fix that sort of thing with third party tools but exactly what needs doing depends on what you see there. If it's nothing other than your computer disk then it's probably but not definitely toast.

gik

My sisters HD went flaky and I had at the time read somewhere read that wrapping up a failed HD in clingfilm and sticking it the freezer overnight and then quickly connecting it as a slave sometimes allowed access to retrieve files. I did manage to retrieve most of her sprogs pics before it went completely

r2015

You should check to see if it shows up in the disk manager.

It doesn't.

gjchester

Hard to be sure on the description, but sounds like it will need professional recovery, possibly its down to controller failure.


I'd try Recuva http://www.piriform.com/recuva but there's always the risk your making a dying disk die faster...


Question will be what's on the drive and how important is it to you , as recovery can be hundreds maybe thousands....

r2015

A linux live distro or systemrescuecd perhaps ?
http://www.sysresccd.org/SystemRescueCd_Homepage

Tried that, my computer screen becomes unreadable when I boot from that.



I booted my computer using a Bart PE CD-ROM, as it wouldn't boot with 2 hard disks connected, and managed to get CHKDSK running.


My spare computer only has 2 SATA connections.
After 12 hours it is at 73% completed.

I'd try Recuva http://www.piriform.com/recuva

That doesn't help if the hard drive cannot be read.

Strider590

Moneymaker wrote: »

Hmm, doesn't sound promising. I've had a couple of Seagate drives overheat while I've been doing backups. Turned into door stops.

You could try data retrieval software but I'm not optimistic.

I've got a number of external drives, but the only one that stays on for more than 30mins at a time, is the one inside a fan cooled case (and this one stays on 24/7/365).

As this poster hints at, heat is a BIG problem for external hard drives. As when inside a PC or laptop they will always be in a location that receives cool air from the system or case fans and Rarely do COTS (commercial off the shelf) externals have a case which is conducive to heat dissipation.
All of mine are custom builds, using cases from Antec or Icybox and low rpm HDDs from WD or Samsung.