External HDD Issues

Ok so lately I’ve really been fistrated with my external HDD connector. It’s a little enclosure with a USB wire. It was working fine up until recently…I plugged it in and it stopped being recognized by my computer. I tried unplugging and plugging several times and then the dam nthing wanted a re-format. I said hell no and then tried several things to try to get the computer to recognize it. I then tried it on other machines and came up with the same problem.
I plugged it in last night…somehow it recognized it but now its a RAW drive – meaning I’ve probably lost all my that I had on it. I tried another drive and it turned it to RAW. WTF is going on? Do I need a new enclosure? I bet I do….
Thoughts?
Answer #1
Take it out of the enclosure and mount it as an internal drive. Never , ever use an external hd for important stuff.
Answer #2
Yea seems like you lost your volume drive. Provided you haven’t overwritten it, it should be fairly easy to recover the files from it.
Answer #3
Never , ever use an external hd for important stuff.
Opposite is true actually but this isn’t the discussion needed for your problem; moral of the story – don’t use some cheap HD enclosure. Those $25 models seem to have a half-life of 6 months and when they go, they can complicate getting your information from the actual hard drive.
Now what? Grab a USB based program that does not run in Windows to attempt to recover your partition and data. Examples that come to mind: Easeus Data Recovery Wizard (there is a free version), paragon has something. Just do a google..my mind went to mush
Answer #4
Never , ever use an external hd for important stuff.
Opposite is true actually but this isn't the discussion needed for your problem; moral of the story - don't use some cheap HD enclosure. Those $25 models seem to have a half-life of 6 months and when they go, they can complicate getting your information from the actual hard drive.
Now what? Grab a USB based program that does not run in Windows to attempt to recover your partition and data. Examples that come to mind: Easeus Data Recovery Wizard (there is a free version), paragon has something. Just do a google..my mind went to mush
Thanks for your answer. I’ve tried that program but it fails to detect the drive. The drive is RAW.
Answer #5
You need to boot from a USB / DVD and make sure you have connected the drive to a USB2 port. USB 3 recognition from outside of windows is still not widely supported.
Google away for alternatives …
Answer #6
You haven’t said what you have exactly…Is it a portable hard drive that comes complete in it’s own case such as a WD Passport?
Or is it a hard drive that has been fitted into a generic enclosure ?? In which case, as suggested, it could be removed and installed directly
in your PC, as it may be stuff in the enclosure that is causing problems..( you might try a new USB cable too).
Diskgetor can often recover stuff well, so would be worth a try..
http://www.google.com?t=15441522&highlight=
Idon’t see any need to boot from a DVD/USB because it is not the system drive in your PC that you are having problems with..
Answer #7

Idon't see any need to boot from a DVD/USB because it is not the system drive in your PC that you are having problems with..
I do this because if Windows isn’t recognizing the drive, it could be something up with the actual windows installation that is causing the issue. If so, then whatever software you use will likely fail as well given almost all use the windows drivers to access the hardware.
Going with a boot solution avoids this potential issue.