Retrieving photos & other files from harddrive using docking station without formatting.

[Panchot]

I'm getting rid of some old hard drives & I'm trying to extract some of the files off of them before I throw them out, I'm using a Bytecc super speed USB 3.0 docking cable. After connecting it to my laptop (Win 7 OS) it comes up for about a couple of seconds & then says I need to format the drive before the laptop can read it. I don't want to format before I transfer all the files I need off of it.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey Panchot. Take a look at the data recovery options listed in this thread: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-1644496/lost-data-recovery.html
Hopefully one of them helps you retrieve your data. You could also try to access the drive with a Linux Live USB/CD to see if you can recover your data this way.

Hope that helps.
Boogieman_WD

 

[fzabkar]

@Panchot, the fact that Windows is not prompting you to initialise the drive suggests that it can read sector 0. That's where the partition table lives. However, the fact that Windows wants to format the drive suggests that it cannot make sense of the boot sector, or cannot find it. One possible reason for this could be that your enclosure may be configured with a non-standard sector size.

I would examine the drive with a disc editor, eg DMDE (freeware).

http://dmde.com/

Could you show us DMDE's Partitions window?

Could you also show us the contents of sector 0?