External hard drive cannot be read

[sharp5217]

hello,
i have an external hard drive that isnt recognised on the computer or laptop. The lights on the hard drive turn on, and there is a whirring sound. It shows up in device manager, but cant see it in My Computer to access the files.
Please help!

Model: Asus AN300 Ext HDD 500GB

 

[alwintom]

Is it listed in 'Storage Manager'? (Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Storage)
If it is what does it say?

If the partitions are listed there, try to assign Drive letters to the partitions (if you already haven't)

 

[sharp5217]

Is it listed in 'Storage Manager'? (Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Storage)
If it is what does it say?

If the partitions are listed there, try to assign Drive letters to the partitions (if you already haven't)

Its not coming up under storage manager. (sorry for the late answer)

 

[StrikeMyrmidon]

Did you use the external drive on the current computer before or was it formatted and used last on a Mac? Windows won't recognize Mac partitions at all unless you have a third party program.

 

[sharp5217]

Did you use the external drive on the current computer before or was it formatted and used last on a Mac? Windows won't recognize Mac partitions at all unless you have a third party program.

It was last used on the current computer, hasnt been used on a Mac before.

 

[alwintom]

Ok, if you can get into the BIOS setup utility, check if the BIOS detects this hard drive. If it has, try to find the number of LBA sectors reported there (not all BIOS show that info). If the number of reported sectors is not what it should be then there is some problem with the firmware/PCB.

In anycase try these steps in order:

*** If any Disk repair tools can detect your HDD (like GetDataBack, EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard, iRecover, Remo Recover, DiskInternals NTFS/FAT recovery), create a clone of the Disk and save it somehwere. Tjis is VERY IMPORTANT. A faulty drive can progressively spread the damage each time you try to read/write to it. So having an image of the disk will help you.

Later, you can use any of the above said tools to scan for files within the image you just created. Do not try to do this on actual physical HDD. Try not to strain the faulty drive.

However if none of the tools can detect your drive/does not create a valid image do these in order:

1. Try a different USB cable.
2. If you can get the HDD out of the enclosure, try to conenct it directly to the motherboard (using SATA or IDE) -- DOING THIS WILL VOID YOUR WARRANTY
3. There is a powerful tool called, Diskpatch, which can repair/clone corrupted HDDs. You can find more info here:
http://www.diydatarecovery.nl/
As a start, try to generate a Analysis Report using DIskPatch. Follow the instructions in the site. And you can ask questions in there forum. One of the best things about them is developers will communicate with you and will analyze the generated report(even demo version can generate this file) and suggest what to do next.

4. If none of these worked, then its quite possible that your HDD has a physical damage. In this case you ahve the follwoing options:

a. IF the data is very important, approach a professional recovery service. Remeber data recovery can be very expensive depending on the scale of damage the HDD has suffered and the amount of data.

b. If the HDD is within warranty period, see if the manufaturer offer repair services.

c. If HDD is within warranty, try to RMA it - but you will lose your data.

***IMPORTANT: DO NOT TRY TO FIX THE HDD USING CHCKDSC, FDISK OR OTHER SYSTEM TOOLS, THEY COULD MAKE THE DATA INACCESSIBLE ****

I am also going through a similar situation. I will update this thread if I find a solution for my problem

 

[Achint2000]

Same here. WD My Passport 1TB External HDD.

Detects in BIOS, can access all files in BIOS, can see proper installed driver on Win7.

But it cant browse files or read contents in the HDD in Windows. When I try to scan it with WD Data Lifeguard it doesnt detect the drive.

Weird problem.

UPDATE: USB Cable was faulty, replaced, still not able to access.