Not able to access external HDD.

[Febin_]

My HDD was connected to my TV and it was working fine. Then I removed it so that I can use it on my PC for other purposes and it no longer is getting displayed as disk drive in My Computer. It is, however, being detected by USB management. But then nothing. I bought the thing less than a year ago, so please help.

UPDATE: I looked up the drive in the system using dskmngmnt.msc and it is there; albeit shown as "Unallocated" . I need the data in there. So please tell me how I can access the drive without having to format the whole thing.

 

[popatim]

Does the TV still detect and use the drive normally?

 

[Febin_]

Does the TV still detect and use the drive normally?

Thats the thing.....now the TV is also showing the message "No USB device detected".......

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Welcome, Febin_!

If the external shows as "Unallocated" in Disk Management, it seems like you have lost the file system. You can do some data retrieving attempts by yourself, but at your own risk. You should keep in mind that a professional data recovery company is your best bet on getting your files back.
In the future, make sure to have, at least, two copies of your data stored on different HDDs/storage locations. This is the best way to prevent similar data-loss headaches! 🙁

Best of luck!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[popatim]

Try using testdisk and seeing if it can recover the partition. Best bet is to first make an image of the drive to another hdd that has enough room (empty space greater then the size of the external harddrive)

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step

the download link is on the top left.