Transcend 500GB won't open!

[khashayar]

Hi everybody,

Few days ago I was working with my computer as always, all of a sudden my external HDD Transcend 500GB stopped working. I was not using any files from the HDD, however I'm not sure if they were busy by a hidden task. I found the drive was ejected and since then, every time I tried to open it by double clicking on the icon, windows says I need to format the drive in order to use it.

I tried to scan it using Partition Find and Mount and apparently there was no issue found. Unfortunately the software did not provide any log.

OS: Windows 7, 64 bit

Could you please help me find a solution for this problem? Do you suggest scanning for bad sectors? What software?

Khashayar

PS. I was advised to take the HDD out of USB enclosure and put into another one and recover files. Because it's possible that the USB enclosure caused the HDD not to open. I tried to recover files without changing the enclosure. but the problem is that I prefer testing the drive before opening the case !

 

[Elmo]

Welcome to tpu . First things first when you plug your external does it display in my computer? Also is there any "!" symbol in device manager?

 

[khashayar]

Welcome to tpu . First things first when you plug your external does it display in my computer? Also is there any "!" symbol in device manager?

Yes it does show it there. I attached the screenshot.
in device manager, everything seems ok and without any "!" or "x"

 

[Elmo]

Yes it does show it there. I attached the screenshot.
in device manager, everything seems ok and without any "!" or "x"

try to reformat it if u can .

 

[brandonwh64]

Looks to be a RAW unpartition. Right click my computer and go to manage then under disk management find the drive and right click and format.

 

[khashayar]

try to reformat it if u can .

what about all the data? isn't there any other way to open the drive?

 

[khashayar]

I'd like to avoid formatting the drive and trying other solutions if any possible.

 

[Elmo]

try running check disk on it . By using command prompt and navigate to drive location.

 

[Aquinus]

Stop trying to tell this poor guy to wipe his drive before he even attempts a backup.

Can you send us a screenshot of disk manager? You can find it by searching in the start menu "diskmgmt.msc".

 

[khashayar]

Stop trying to tell this poor guy to wipe his drive before he even attempts a backup.

Can you send us a screenshot of disk manager? You can find it by searching in the start menu "diskmgmt.msc".

Thank you Aquinus. I attached the screenshot.

 

[MasterInvader]

I use this quite often to recover lost data:
EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard Professional

If you dont find a way to "start" that HD without format, that software is all you need to recover everything.

 

[Aquinus]

Thank you Aquinus. I attached the screenshot.

Clearly it wasn't RAW before all of this happened. Was it NTFS and have you tried mounting in on a *nix box to see if that works?

I use this quite often to recover lost data:
EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard Professional

If you dont find a way to "start" that HD without format, that software is all you need to recover everything.

+1

 

[natr0n]

this is also good and simple recovery software

 

[khashayar]

Hi everybody!

I recovered all my files finally. THANK YOU ALL!

I just share here what I did exactly for those who might encounter this problem in the future. Please read above first!

First I created an image file using R-Studio (full version) and saved it on a separate drive to make sure I have a backup! Then I tried 'Open Drive Files' feature of the software and luckily MTF was not damaged or overwritten so I had all the folder structure and file names exactly as I had them before! This was I could choose what file needs to be recovered. So now I have all the files I had!

One question though: What should I do with my damaged drive to make it usable? let windows format it? what do you recommend as the safest?

Again, I thank all of you for your help!
Khashayar