External HardDrive Problems

Hello,


I hooked up my WD hard drive to my laptop and it would not show that it was there (didn't show up in "my computer"). I thought that it was because of conflicting drive letters.


So I changed it...I went to disk management, plugged in my external HD, and disk management recognized it as unallocated space. So I right clicked it and chose "Change Drive Letter and Paths". I chose a different drive letter and it asked if I wanted to reformat the drive...I said no because I have VERY INPORTANT stuff on there. So I unplug the USB and replug it back into the laptop. The HD shows up in "my computer" to my relief. I double click it and it says I need to format it before I use it!!!!

I tried on 2 other computers and the same thing happens...it says it needs to reformat the drive, I can't access any of the files. I then tried to backup all the files on the HD and it wont let me...says its not responding.


At the moment all I'm interested in is saving all the files on my HD. If that stuff is gone I might as well die.


I hope to god you guys can help or give some worthy advice


thanks
-Alex

 

here are some other details:

I know originally (when it was working) that its a fat32 file system


when I click the properties of the drive:

type: local
file system: RAW
used space: 0 bytes
free space: 0 bytes

When I try to defragment it, it says: cannot run on this volume type

and it wont let me error check or back up.


-

 

I didn't get this bit. It showed as unallocated space before changing te driver letter or after ?

Have you tried assigning the old drive letter ?

Also what file system ?

And how did you know that it doesn't show in My Computer due to Drive letter conflicts ? Did the external HDD have a similar drive letter compared to some other device ?

 

In vista when I went to disk management, it read the external HD as unallocated space...I just assumed it was because of the conflicting drive letters (this is before changing the letter)

One of my internal HD's has the same letter so thats why I tried assigning a new one...I can't assign the old one

I deff. know that the original file system of the ext HD was fat32....now it reads RAW file system.

 

Well changing drive letters wouldn't cause the file-system to go RAW.

Run GParted, and see what file-system it shows, and if there is any data or partition on the external drive. I think GParted might detect the USB HDD.

 

I have no idea how to install gparted

 

You do not need to install GParted. You can download the iso, burn it to a CD, and boot of it. Just set the boot order to ODD - first, in the BIOS. http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php

Check out its documentation.

 

Disk Managment showing that the drive is "RAW", is an indication that the partition tables might have been zapped. If you have important data on the drive that is not backed-up elsewhere, I would strongly suggest that you do not attempt any "repairs". Instead, get an appropriate data recovery software and let it do its job. If you are lucky, only the partition information is gone so your actual data might still be on the drive and might be recoverable.

 

HELP! The same problem has happened to me. I was attempting to transfer files from one external hard drive, to my regular hard drive, and then onto a different external drive. The drive letter on the second external changed, it is now showing the same information as yours, and I fear that I've lost more than 500GB of files.

Help_Me_Out_Plz : What, if anything, worked to fix yours?

 

hmm..... have you tried booting up your computer with the external device attached attached? windows will usually arranged the drive letters at bootup.

 

i tried that multiple times, rearranging hard drives in the ports, changing the letter of the drive, plugging in pre-boot and post-boot etc.
I'm running a file recovery right now to see if it can return anything to me. Only 3576 minutes left!
*sigh*

Even after/if I get this information back, I feel like driving over my HD with a fleet of vehicles, never mind just one.