In extreme need of help!

[Jersey Boy 0]

I'm coming to guys in dire need of help. My external hard drive doesn't read my files anymore. It has the information on it cause when I highlight the hard drive icon it says Total Size: 465 Free Space: 187. So I'm almost positive the stuff is still there but I can't access it. This is more than music and movies I will be losing, all my family photos / videos are on there and it would kill me if I couldn't get em back. I have tried Google, troubleshooting sites, and asked all of my friends with no luck. If anyone has any information on how to help / solve this situation I will be so thankful. Please help me. Any help is very much appreciated.

[Saiyaman 0]

If Google can't help you, I don't know who can.

Is Read-Only ticked? That could have something to do with it.

Even I keep important things backed up on more than an external in case it does fail.

(BTW I use a PC, Laptop, External, 2 USBs, iPod, Phone and PSP to back important things up... ) - Talk about paranoid.

[Jersey Boy 0]

If Google can't help you, I don't know who can.

Is Read-Only ticked? That could have something to do with it.

Even I keep important things backed up on more than an external in case it does fail.

(BTW I use a PC, Laptop, External, 2 USBs, iPod, Phone and PSP to back important things up... ) - Talk about paranoid.

yeah that's juust the thing the external was my back up. i was just adding more to it and it doesn't read.

[Airwolf24 0]

Did your External HDD give you an error, or access Deny when you try to access it?

[Carlos85G 22]

Try GetDataBack for NTFS or FAT (depending on your HDD file system) to make a backup of your files. If your PC is able to see your HDD, maybe the files are still retrievable.

[archer9234 20]

Yeah. It's possible the files that tell the PC how to read boot sequence, file system etc. got corrupted. Either from a pull out without you safety disconnecting, or transfer error.

[Jersey Boy 0]

Yeah. It's possible the files that tell the PC how to read boot sequence, file system etc. got corrupted. Either from a pull out without you safety disconnecting, or transfer error.

I guess it's something like that. It always did an Auto Play thing when it got hooked up it just doesn't do it anymore. Is there a way for it to start doing it again?

[Jersey Boy 0]

Try GetDataBack for NTFS or FAT (depending on your HDD file system) to make a backup of your files. If your PC is able to see your HDD, maybe the files are still retrievable.

Yeah I've tried Recuva but it gives me the stuff in .chk form and I dunno how to use that. I've also tried ParetoLogic Data Recovery but I left it running for 8 hours and it found all it can but it wouldn't stop scanning. I'm trying GetDataBack right now. (fingers crossed)

[Mike 214]

Have you tried plugging in the hard drive on another PC/Laptop?

[Jersey Boy 0]

Have you tried plugging in the hard drive on another PC/Laptop?

Yeah that's one of the first things I tried. I was hoping my computer just needed to be restored to factory settings. No such luck.

[daangelo29 5]

External, meaning USB, right? Try replacing either/both the USB cable or/and the drive's power adapter, if there is one, and see what happens lol.

Also, if your drive is using an ordinary USB cable, try using a "2-way" one, the one whose one end has two plugs, one for power and other for data. External drives that both suck power from your PC and transfer data through the same damn cable would render themselves useless with some computers, especially laptops and PCs with poor CPUs, in this manner.

If all else fails, there is only one advise I can give you on this -- reformatting the drive, which will make the hard drive work again, and lose all your files in the process, but since it's a back-up, I don't see why it would be a biggie UNLESS you don't have all of the original files in the primary drive and you have other important stuff in there than just back-up -- until you mention something that would prove otherwise.

[Jersey Boy 0]

External, meaning USB, right? Try replacing either/both the USB cable or/and the drive's power adapter, if there is one, and see what happens lol[...]

Tried using other cord. No go with that. Yeah don't have all the originals on my comp. that's why I'm freakin out.

[daangelo29 5]

Wait, can your PC detect your hard drive, where you can see it listed in My Computer, but cannot be read where you can't explore it and see its contents and stuff, or is it both undetectable and unreadable?

If the latter is true, you're out of luck. Your hard drive is not useless forever, but fixing it would cost all of the files stored in it. Also you can only do it outside the OS (which is Windows) and with a software (with a boot feature) that's capable of formatting drives, like an OS installer (just an example not necessarily saying you should use it in this case), because obviously the OS can't detect it, thus making it impossible to format it this way. Back then, I had a very similar problem once with a drive -- both undetectable and unreadable via OS -- where I just use a leaked/pirated Vista installer burned in a CD from a friend to detect this drive and format it to make it detectable AND readable again.

If the latter is not true, there is still hope. Like the others said, there might be a problem in the software responsible for reading hard drives. Try Googling for something like "problem detecting external/USB hard drives". (at the moment, I really don't have the time to help you more like I always do here in the forums)

EDIT: When I said "PCs with poor CPUs", I meant either the PC's CPU does have a really low clock speed and is "old school", or the CPU is so overly used by the PC that it begins to operate poorly. Try closing as many programs running in background as possible up to the point that the CPU usage goes below 15%, then plug in the external drive and see what happens. Also, it could be possible that one or some of your security programs tried blocking the drive.

[♠Grim♂ Reaper 1666◙ 17]

try running check disk on the drive