1.5TB Seagate GoFlex Pro External Hard drive crashes everything that tries to access it.

[dhumanb]

Hello, I have a partitioned external hard drive that has suddenly deteriorated into a metaphorical dumpster fire. It was working fine for the last couple years but for the last couple days, plugging it into the computer has both partitions show up as "Local Disk E:" and "Local Disk F:". That is, before it crashes windows explorer. I've downloaded a couple data recovery apps like EaseUS and TestDisk, and both programs work normally but as soon as I plug in the offending hard drive, both programs will hang indefinitely.

Is there any possible way to save the data? Its not the end of the world if not, it would just save a massive amount of time. And if its no longer possible to save the data, is it possible to still save the disk or am I SoL? I'll probably buy a new external either way, but I'd still probably like to use this one for less important storage if possible.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey there, dhumanb.

Well, you could still try the basics of external HDD troubleshooting: try it out with a different USB cable (preferably shorter than 12") and with a different computer, to see if the same thing happens again. If that doesn't help, having in mind you've already tried out a couple of data recovery software options, you could try accessing the drive via Ubuntu Live USB/DVD, to see if can be properly recognized and if you can get to your files. If worse comes to worst and you are unable to recover any of your data, you could try reformatting the drive, to see if you'd be able to use it normally after that, but I wouldn't get my hopes too high if I were your. Unfortunately it sounds like the HDD might have accumulated bad sectors, or it might be having some other issues.

Hope that helps. Please let me know how everything goes.
Boogieman_WD

 

[dhumanb]

Hey there, dhumanb.

Well, you could still try the basics of external HDD troubleshooting: try it out with a different USB cable (preferably shorter than 12") and with a different computer, to see if the same thing happens again. If that doesn't help, having in mind you've already tried out a couple of data recovery software options, you could try accessing the drive via Ubuntu Live USB/DVD, to see if can be properly recognized and if you can get to your files. If worse comes to worst and you are unable to recover any of your data, you could try reformatting the drive, to see if you'd be able to use it normally after that, but I wouldn't get my hopes too high if I were your. Unfortunately it sounds like the HDD might have accumulated bad sectors, or it might be having some other issues.

Hope that helps. Please let me know how everything goes.
Boogieman_WD

Thanks for the tips. Just tried with a couple new cables and that didn't work. I don't have access to a different computer at the moment but when I do I'll try it out then. If I do end up fixing it by reformatting it, I'll just use it as unimportant temporary storage for movies or something.