Question !HELP! External Hard Drive got full, detectable but inaccessible. !Help!

[Kasra97]

Hi, I have a 4TB External WD Hard Drive with which I got careless and let only 20+ Gb of free space remain of the approximately 3.6TB usable space. Now it keeps crashing my windows explorer every time I try to open it. I've tried it on 2 different systems, both show the same problem so it is definitely the hard drive.

I've tried entering addresses of folders in it directly, but it still doesn't work. I can't right-click on it to try defragmentation as I read someone was able to solve a similar problem by doing so. I read chkdsk command could help on this very site but for some reason, it simply doesn't do anything in my CMD. All I need is a moment's access so I can move/remove a portion of my data and free space. I'm sure you understand that 4T of data is simply too much to lose and I can't format it either.

It is detectable, but not accessible and I never got a not enough space available warning. What should I do?

 

[Deleted member 14196]

If the data is that precious than you had better take it to a professional for data recovery purposes purposes

 

[Kasra97]

If the data is that precious than you had better take it to a professional for data recovery purposes purposes

It`s not easy to find an actual professional where I live. Covid-19 has also complicated matters for me to travel to another town, that is IF I could find someone. Doing something about it myself is really my only option right now. Any other ideas?

 

[Grobe]

It`s not easy to find an actual professional where I live.

This is true in my location as well. So, if you can trust the local postal service in your location, that's probably the best bet. That is, of course after you have got to an agreement with a reputable company first, and I assume they will provide a guideline about shipments as well.

 

[Kasra97]

This is true in my location as well. So, if you can trust the local postal service in your location, that's probably the best bet. That is, of course after you have got to an agreement with a reputable company first, and I assume they will provide a guideline about shipments as well.

I would first have to find such a company. One that wouldn't just format it and send me back a "working" but empty hard drive, and also one I would be sure won't steal my data. It's nothing sensitive or something I have to use now but it may cause legal complications if another party other than myself has access to it.




I regret nothing more than having procrastinated freeing up on that hard drive and causing an overload. I had no idea this could happen.

 

[USAFRet]

I regret nothing more than having procrastinated freeing up on that hard drive and causing an overload. I had no idea this could happen.

This is specifically what full drive backups are for.
Storage devices and your data can go south at any time, for a wide variety of reasons.

 

[Kasra97]

This is specifically what full drive backups are for.
Storage devices and your data can go south at any time, for a wide variety of reasons.

I will remember this experience for the rest of my life and never make the same mistakes. But considering my data is still there, I just can't access it, should I keep being hopeful? Or is it already gone? I did see a couple of other cases with overloaded drive causing similar problems on the web, but so far the solutions that had worked for them hasn't worked for me.

 

[USAFRet]

I will remember this experience for the rest of my life and never make the same mistakes. But considering my data is still there, I just can't access it, should I keep being hopeful? Or is it already gone? I did see a couple of other cases with overloaded drive causing similar problems on the web, but so far the solutions that had worked for them hasn't worked for me.

Have any experience with Linux?

 

[Kasra97]

Have any experience with Linux?

Unfortunately No.


I did manage to find a company to handle recovery. They told me the overload had caused a bad sector. A full scan would take more time and it's still not clear whether my data will be recovered, and if yes how much of it.
Thanks to everyone who answered my question , I'll keep an optimistic mind untill I hera more from them.