can't open external hard drive

habsan04

Honorable
Mar 23, 2013
1
0
10,510
My external hard drive was removed without being safely disconnected. Now it will not open. I'm being ask to format first. I have over 5000 pics on it that I don't want to loose. What do I do?
 

Michael789

Honorable
Mar 25, 2013
6
0
10,510
You should learn to eject your hard drive by using the “Safely Remove Hardware tool” in the future.
But, now, in your case, you should not format this drive, if you still want to get back your pictures completely.
Stop saving new picture or other file on this drive at first.
Select a third-party recovery tool to restore your pictures back. In fact, there are plenty of data recovery tools out there. You should pay much attention to select a right one.
You could try some data recovery freeware:
http://www.piriform.com/recuva
http://freeware-fix.blogspot.com/2013/03/hard-drive-not-formatted-error.html
At last, save your recovered pictures on a different drive in case of data loss.
In the future, you should use your drive rightly and safely.