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Question System unable to detect my External Hard disk

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Tarun_01

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Nov 9, 2011
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Hello guys,

I've using this external hard disk for some time and suddenly out of nowhere my system is failing to detect my hard disk.

I've gone up to device management and i see that the hard disk is listed there and in properties it says the device is working properly.
I try to see it's status in Disk management but the disk management tool refuses to open. It gets stuck.
I boot into safe mode and try to plug in the hard disk and i see that the system is detecting the hard disk but the info which is usually shown (space available etc.) is not present. Moreover it's in no way intractable. I can't open it, i can't right click on it. whatever i try the system goes on a endless loading loop.

Is there anyway to fix this issue? or at the very least to recover my data from the disk?
 
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I would probably start by trying the free Easeus tool from HERE.

It is quite easy to corrupt the MBR of a USB drive if it gets unplugged or powered off while anything is still being written. Best to never consider a copy on an external drive alone to be sufficient backup for important data.
 
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RealBeast said:
I would probably start by trying the free Easeus tool from HERE.

It is quite easy to corrupt the MBR of a USB drive if it gets unplugged or powered off while anything is still being written. Best to never consider a copy on an external drive alone to be sufficient backup for important data.
Click to expand...
Easeus is also stuck at the 'Disk information is being refreshed' screen. so unable to use it recover the data.
 
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fzabkar said:
It sounds like your system is able to see the USB-SATA bridge hardware, but not the drive behind the bridge.

Is your external drive powered from the USB port, or is it powered via an AC adapter?

Can you hear the drive spin up inside the enclosure?
Click to expand...
It is powered from the USB port, and yes i can hear the drive spin inside.

Edit: Also if it helps, whenever i plug in the hard disk, there's the status 'Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media' in the icons present in the Task bar, like for any external device. Does that mean the system recognizes the drive but refuses to show it?
 
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Port powered drives usually integrate the USB hardware on the drive's PCB. This means that you most probably won't be able to separate the HDD from the bridge circuitry. That is, if you open the enclosure, you most probably won't see a SATA HDD that you could then attach to your computer's SATA ports.
 
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fzabkar said:
Port powered drives usually integrate the USB hardware on the drive's PCB. This means that you most probably won't be able to separate the HDD from the bridge circuitry. That is, if you open the enclosure, you most probably won't see a SATA HDD that you could then attach to your computer's SATA ports.
Click to expand...
So there's no way to recover the files now?
 
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