Data recovery from external HD

[cookie_monster]

Hi all. I've got a friends external HD that is suddenly telling them that it needs formatting when he plugs it in but of course it's got lots of data on.

 

It's been a while since I've used free data recovery utils, I've had a google and there's loads so can anyone reccommend one that would be good in this situation?

 

Cheers all

[hit]

I get loads of these from staff who don't eject them cleanly in vista. I have tried several tools to fix the problem most of which have made the situation worse. The best way I have found to deal with it is use a live cd to boot into your favourite Linux, mount the drive and copy the contents off, re-format the drive and copy it all back again. Then sit back and wait for them to do it again!

[glennda]

have you tried taking it out the case and connecting via normal SATA? might just be the Sata>USB interface is dodgy - worked for me in the past

 

EDIT: also it sometimes is teh case if the autorun.ini file goes awol

Edited February 18, 2012 by glennda

[elsiegee40]

It is worth trying to connect the external HD to a different computer. I had a couple of memory sticks that were doing this, but I discovered (by accident) that they worked on one particular machine in school. I have no idea why; they just did!

[tomgrindle]

Sometimes if you plug it back into the same usb port on the same computer that it was last working on it works. Again like @elsiegee40 I don't know why, but then again I have never really looked into it, just pleased that its worked.

[cookie_monster]

Hmm yes I have a USB scanner that works on one particular port.

I'll try a few ideas and a live CD. Cheers