Cant access my external hard drive. keeps asking me to format?

trinidadone

i think i have down loaded, now what?

trinidadone

theres a long list, full of stuff i dont understand

grumpycrab

trinidadone wrote: »

theres a long list, full of stuff i dont understand

Bit tricky to walk through here. You've been pointed at a step-by-step guide. Photorec is a simpler version of the same thing. Or get a tech friend to help.
PLAN B. take the disk out of the box and connect it directly to the motherboard (actually I'd have tried this first but keep going with Testdisk/Photorec)

agrinnall

Assuming that it is Recuva that you have downloaded, have you checked the documentation page online? Using Recuva is probably a good starting point.

https://www.piriform.com/docs

Actually, maybe you've got Testdisk, in which case as grumpycrab says you already have a link to the instructions.

If they are too techie for you to follow then you may have to bite the bullet and pay somebody else to recover your data.

S0litaire

trinidadone wrote: »

theres a long list, full of stuff i dont understand

OK FIRST things first.

Sit down Take a big breath and RELAX!
Take a brake with your favourite warm beverage.

This might take a while.

OK relaxed? Good

Now their are 2 options.

1) recover the files to another drive (This is easy if you have the space to save all your files)

2) Recover the partition information (A bit more complicated but you will be able to recovery everything. )

For Option 1) Follow the instructions below:

Install the Recuva software from here : (free edition)

https://www.piriform.com/recuva/download/standard

Now one it's installed follow the instructions here for recovering from a "Damaged or formatted disk" :

https://www.piriform.com/docs/recuva/using-recuva/recovering-files-from-damaged-or-reformatted-disks

This may take a while as it has to copy all the files you select from the damaged drive to another location.

Option 2)

Download Easeus Partition Recovery from here : (it's free)
http://www.easeus.com/partition-recovery/download.htm

Now follow the instructions here:
http://www.easeus.com/resource/partition-recovery.htm

This should be quicker but it might not work on some types of drives. if that is the case let us know and we'll think of something

Double_V

Recuva is best.

Also if you have documents and small files, you can store important stuff on Google Drive as well.

debitcardmayhem

Double_V wrote: »

Recuva is best.

Also if you have documents and small files, you can store important stuff on Google Drive as well.

Absolutely subjective drivel, If the op only has a borked Partition table then testdisk could recover that, and saves having to scan for files first

Moneymaker

It seems to me that the OP has precious files on a single disk with no backup. In that case, the FIRST thing to do is to buy a second drive of the same (or greater) capacity and then recover the files onto it. It's best to do this without writing to the borked drive in case it has a serious fault. The first drive can then be messed with and used as the backup if it appears to be OK. If it's not OK then another drive should be purchased in order to have a backup.

Note that the typical life of a frequently-used drive is 5 years but reduces to 3 years or less if used continuously for video. I stress "typical". It might last 10 years but do you really want to take the risk? I change mine every 3 years.

S0litaire

debitcardmayhem wrote: »

Absolutely subjective drivel, If the op only has a borked Partition table then testdisk could recover that, and saves having to scan for files first

You do realise that TestDisk is VERY intimidating to people who are not used to it.
It's NOT very user friendly (i.e. no great graphical interface) and can do more harm than good.

YES it's a great program (I use it a lot myself!) but sometimes you have to offer an alternate program to people who are not very I.T. literate or comfortable using command based programs.

bsod

if it isn't blindingly obvious, do not format it.

launch disk management (diskmgmt.msc) and post a screenshot or describe what you see in the row of boxes relating to the last hard disk drive in the list