External Hard Drive is not recognized and windows wants to initialize

[spunkyfugu]

After returning from traveling, my external hard drive is not recognized by both my laptops. Windows wants to initialize the drive, and I don't want to lose any of my data. If I initialize it, should I do it as a MBR or GUID partition table? Which one will allow me to attempt to recover my files?

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Welcome to the TH Community, @spunkyfugu!

Did you by any chance accidentally dropped your external HDD? Have you tried using a different USB cable as well? You should know that mechanical hard drives are pretty sensitive and can easily get damaged. It looks like you are dealing with a corrupted file system. However, whether you use the GUID partition table or the MBR one depends on the capacity of your external hard drive. Both partition tables will reformat the drive and erase the data. You can definitely try using third-party data retrieving utility but it would be at your own risk! 🙁 I'd strongly recommend you consider testing your drive using its manufacturer's brand-specific diagnostic utility first. It will help you determine the health and SMART stats of the HDD. If there are any SMART errors present, I'd advise you to get in touch with a professional data recovery company as they are your best bet on getting any of the files back.
If you manage to get access to your files, back them up immediately!

Keep me posted with the troubleshooting!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[spunkyfugu]

SuperSoph,

Thanks for the reply! It's a Western Digital 500 GB, I think as for the size is concerned. I don't recall dropping it at all, that was one of my first thoughts as well. I do recall the usb not being plugged in all the way when I setup my laptop and turned it on. I don't know if that made a difference...

 

[spunkyfugu]

Update:
SuperSoph,

I installed the drive diagnostic program from Western Digital, and ran it. It didn't see the hard drive either. Are there anymore options or am I out of luck?