Portable hard drive recognized as local disk

[jmwool01]

OK, so I have simple tech portable hard drive. When the prompt came to open files etc. from windows, I accidentally clicked "use it for backup" and then immediately paniced and pulled the drive from the usb port. Now the pc's recognize it as a local disk not as a portable drive and I can't get to the files at all. Computer management, windows explorer, etc. they all stop responding when I click on this drive. Can't right click for properties,etc. etc. Can I recover the files in some way? It has not been formatted. Do I need to change the Removable Media bit and if so, how do I accomplish that? I am not all that tech savvy...

 

[lonewolf7]

Plug in the HDD, bring up CMD, and type : chkdsk X: /f/r (X is the drive letter, yours may be different)

Or, a data recovery software : http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec

 

[jmwool01]

My drive is L, the error I get is "cannot open volume for direct access" and of course the drive is not recognized if I try to log on to it. Is it possible that the recovery software you suggest will work if I am getting this error in msdos? Thanks for your suggestion loneworf7, for taking the time to help.
JW

Plug in the HDD, bring up CMD, and type : chkdsk X: /f/r (X is the drive letter, yours may be different)

Or, a data recovery software : http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec

 

[lonewolf7]

Yes the data recovery software has the ability to see drivers which are not recognized by my computer/disk management. Hopefully it will work if the drive is seen by BIOS, atleast you can try, no further damage will be done.

Or you can try this software too : http://download.cnet.com/Zero-Assumption-Recovery/3000-2248_4-10061981.html its not free but the trial version will serve the purpose I think. Good luck.

 

[jmwool01]

Well, I think it's safe to say it cannot be recovered. The photorecover software hangs up in dos mode and the ZAR hangs when it gets to device enumeration. Thanks so much for your suggestions and your valuable time :-(.... darn...

Yes the data recovery software has the ability to see drivers which are not recognized by my computer/disk management. Hopefully it will work if the drive is seen by BIOS, atleast you can try, no further damage will be done.

Or you can try this software too : http://download.cnet.com/Zero-Assumption-Recovery/3000-2248_4-10061981.html its not free but the trial version will serve the purpose I think. Good luck.