MAYDAY!! Problem with USB HDD

[01hanstu]

Hi,

I am hoping someone can help me. I am having problems accessing my external HDD and it has everything on it :-(!!!

 

I plugged it into the laptop and it is saying that it is unallocated (the whole 500GB) but I know there is a good 50GB of work on there.

 

Is there anything I can do, lots of this is work for work, but most of it is personal stuff, like family photos etc.

 

Your help is appreciated so much,

Stuart

[jamesfed]

Sounds like maybe the drive or the PCB that connects the drive to the USB is corrupted/broken somehow.

Have you tried plugging it into another PC?

Also you could try removing the drive from its enclosure and you will find just a normal 2.5" or a 3.5" SATA hard disk inside there - just remove that from its attachement to the USB PCB and then (if you have it) use a SATA kit to connect it to your PC or alternatively open up your PC case and plug in direct.

[steveg]

I'd remove it from the external case, and directly connect it inside a pc to see if it's the controller that is the problem. If it still doesnt work then there are a number of different recovery software programs you can run which should be able to still get the data back. (search for recovery software on these forums should bring up a few)

 

Steve

[sonofsanta]

Try chkdsk /r on the drive letter, sometimes does the trick

 

As others say, plug it in directly, often the easiest way, there should only be a few small screws in the way

 

If you're still not having any luck, try recuva, PC Inspector File Recovery and others, if one doesn't work then try a different one as they usually come up with different results.

 

And don't forget to sacrifice a chicken at the sun's zenith whilst chanting the appropriate invocations and spinning round widdershins hopping on one foot...

[Arthur]

try removing the drive from its enclosure and you will find just a normal 2.5" or a 3.5" SATA hard disk inside there

That won't work for all portable HDDs. The WD Passport Essential, Freecom Mobile Drive XXS and LaCie Rikki all have native USB interfaces. The photo below is a Western Digital drive.

 

http://i.imgur.com/wprDS.jpg

[jamesfed]

That won't work for all portable HDDs. The WD Passport Essential, Freecom Mobile Drive XXS and LaCie Rikki all have native USB interfaces. The photo below is a Western Digital drive.

 

http://i.imgur.com/wprDS.jpg

 

There always has to be some awkward companies out there

[plexer]

You're in a whole world of pain with that drive:

 

Data Recovery and Forensic Research: 256-Bit Based Hardware Encryption on WD MyBook Essential

 

Ben

[01hanstu]

Hi,

The HDD is now connected via the HDD Reader and it is the same as before.

Any Ideas?

The PC is picking up the drive, but as unallocated, and I dont wanna allocate it and have no chance of recovering anything.

Cheers

[sonofsanta]

PC Inspector - kostenlose Software fr die Datenrettung von CONVAR - Die Datenretter. can scan unallocated space iirc

[chazzy2501]

spinrite $89, worth it though.

[Arthur]

Interesting info Plexer. However, isn't this a bit like swapping the PCB from a HDD which features FDE to the equivalent which doesn't e.g. ST9500421AS to ST9500420AS.

 

01hanstu. I would try PhotoRec, WinHex and/or GetDataBack next.

Edited July 12, 2011 by Arthur

[LeMarchand]

I've had some success with TestDisk in cases like this. There's a way to get it to copy off the data (takes ages whenever I've used it, though), but as it's from the same people as the aforementioned PhotoRec it may just be a less user-friendly way around the problem (never used PhotoRec).

 

If you do use TestDisk BE VERY CAREFUL as it's quite easy to mess things up even further, as I've found from experience .

[01hanstu]

Thanks everybody for your input. I was mad with panic when I came in the office and all of the resources are on the external HDD.

 

I have taken the HDD out of the casing and connected it with the HDD Reader, and it did do the same, so I used the TestDisk software and am in the process of copying everything to another HDD and will make disk copies of everything

 

Thanks again

Stuart

[mac_shinobi]

You're in a whole world of pain with that drive:

 

Data Recovery and Forensic Research: 256-Bit Based Hardware Encryption on WD MyBook Essential

 

Ben

 

If you read the comments from that link see this comment - I know it is pigeon english ( no offence to the person who posted the comment though )

 

Actually Wd uses AES128 not 256 . Check WD tech documentation not advertising booklets.

Second, data could be retrievable ( we did many cases).

Some need part of hash key stored dirrectly on the drive , and it is not encrypted. With this part of key you could decrypt data . Check hddguru forum , there were told about many times.

 

So am sure a quick search on hddguru you would be able to find how to get back at your data