External Hard Drive - Problem

bignred05

After some advice please.

earlier today I was backing up some old/new doc's/photos to an Intenso 2.5 portable hard drive.

at one point the hard drive slipped and lost connection with the laptop.

Now I can connect to the same laptop, the hard drive shows as connected (and no driver  issues) 

However I can NOT see or locate any files/folders on the hard drive.

any advice please on how to get my files/folders back to view on the laptop.

** I have tried the portable hard drive on another laptop, and the same issues occurs.

Neil_Jones

"Slipped"?  What does that mean?  Drives don't slip.  I suspect you mean it fell on the floor

If you run Chkdsk that will probably fix it.  (right-click on the drive in My Pc and then Properties -> Tools.

bignred05

well it did slip off the Sofa on to the floor yeah 

** I have 4 x USB (2 on each side) if i try the hard drive on any of the 2 on the left side the hard drive lights up Blue, if I connect to the 2 USB on the right side of the laptop it light up green ?

Olinda99

As above - scanning the disk should fix your problem. If not, report back!

The_Fat_Controller

Is it mechanical hard drive or solid state (SSD) ?

A SSD should survive a drop test however a mechanical drive may have been fatally injured.

If it is mechanical can you hear it rotating and is it making any unusual clicking sounds ?

bignred05

Olinda99 said:

As above - scanning the disk should fix your problem. If not, report back!

I've tried several scans all without success.

I'm fairly tech savvy although some of the stuff detailed I'm not sure about.

I've googled run Chkdsk and did several attempts.

nothing appears to change the external hard driver (connected vis lead, not mains) shows up under devices, but not under my C/Drive neither can I open it in anyway.

depending on which side of laptop I use the hard drive lights up either Blue or Green (not flashing)

** also the hard drive description as per the box is as follows;

Intenso 2.5 Externe Festplate Hard Drive 

Thanks all for advice/posts.

grumpycrab

bignred05 said:

Now I can connect to the same laptop, the hard drive shows as connected (and no driver  issues) 
However I can NOT see or locate any files/folders on the hard drive.

nothing appears to change the external hard driver (connected vis lead, not mains) shows up under devices, but not under my C/Drive neither can I open it in anyway.

You're not clear - is the drive appearing with a drive letter (D:, E:, F: etc)  or not?
If not, type diskmgmt  in search box and run the program/app "Create and format hard disk partitions".
Is the drive appearing here or not?  Show us a picture.

GDB2222

Why all the fuss? Just use one of your other backups. 

Olinda99

"nothing appears to change the external hard driver (connected vis lead, not mains) shows up under devices, but not under my C/Drive neither can I open it in anyway."

please can you translate this. Thanks

bignred05

grumpycrab said:

bignred05 said:

Now I can connect to the same laptop, the hard drive shows as connected (and no driver  issues) 
However I can NOT see or locate any files/folders on the hard drive.

nothing appears to change the external hard driver (connected vis lead, not mains) shows up under devices, but not under my C/Drive neither can I open it in anyway.

You're not clear - is the drive appearing with a drive letter (D:, E:, F: etc)  or not?
If not, type diskmgmt  in search box and run the program/app "Create and format hard disk partitions".
Is the drive appearing here or not?  Show us a picture.

I can see my external hard drive two ways
One, under the bottom right corner of the task bar where it shows as connected 
Two, if I right click this option I can see the hard drive under Devices & Printers.

although I can't open the harddrive to get at the files stored 

despite running several Chkdsk I can not see the hard drive under File Explorer/My Computer
the hard drive does not show up here at all, prior to being dropped it was always on

** This is my work laptop, its the same set up/appearance on my own laptop the one which the hard drive fell out of whilst connected.


 view and able to open it here.

Sicard

Try a thrid party defragger/optimiser like https://www.glarysoft.com/disk-speedup/download/ It's safe and it'll only take minutes to find out if the app sees your drive.