Data recovery from External HD

I've got an external hard drive, with around 20GB worth of data on. About 2GB of which is important enough for me to take the taking trying to extract it.

I've tried running data recovery progress, file recovery, and chkdsk; none of which have worked. All either not finding the file, and stopping part way through.

Problem with the drive, is that sometimes the laptop picks it up, sometimes it doesn't, but even when it does it says it can't find the files when you try and open/move them.

Any suggestions on what I could try and do so I can get this data off, then I can format and start afresh by making new partitions.

It's FAT32.

I'm using XP.

Anything else i'm not telling you, then shout.

Any help i smuch appreciated because i'm starting to get desperate.

Well what type of file are you trying to access.... i mean may be its being locked or may be has been damaged and system could not reach it or move it..... one other reason would be bad sector...... Try connecting it as an IDE (with a system after using a convertor obviously)

I'm wanting to get some .doc and .pdf files off.

It's connecting through USB at the moment, into the laptop; how would i hook it up through using IDE? I'd have to crack the external drives case, wouldn't I?

Or am I thinking far too aggressively?

Thanks for the quick reply!

Do you know who the manufacturer is? Have you checked their website for a HD diagnostic disk? Many of them will have some type of diagnostic tool specifically for their drives.

Already checked www.freecom.com, their website; and unfortunately there's no diagnostic tool.

Thanks for the suggestion though.

Yes, to get into an External HD you'd have to open up the enclosure. Unfortunately, I think that voids the warrenty on the drive even though you only opened up the USB Enclosure.

Grab SpeedFan (http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php) and use its HD SMART reader. Most HDD's today are S.M.A.R.T. and can detect some fault conditions, and rate their own fitness. If the fitness is low, it probably confirms your drive will die soon.


As to getting the data off...I'm not too sure. I recommend getting the drive out of the enclosure and into a desktop computer because then the drive can be accessed at higher speeds which might allow you to get the data off of it in time. Usually if you can't read the HD like normally, it is usually too late to try and recover data off of it yourself. But professional recovery services on a dead (not powering-up) HDD are very expensive...

Good luck.

Hi! 5 days ago i aslo had problems with my external HDD sometimes windows find ti and sometimes not! But this time it didn't find it! I heard only noises from it - the driver for it was loaded, nothing more. What i can offer is to try using Linux or Knoppix. My knoppix 3.4 loaded the hdd with out any problem and i could easy get the data on it. However there were some places where it couldn't read the info. You can try it! I'm really astonished about Knoppix. Perhaps it will help you too.
Good luck!

I wish you luck....................a bit of an ominous start I am afraid, but that is the nature of these things :(

You will need a drive/partition of at least the same size. Do a google search for "Unstoppable Copier" by a guy called roadkil (spelt just like that :) )

If your drive is falling apart, try putting it in a plastic bag and into the freezer for half an hour. The contraction generally gives you enough time to recover what can be recovered.

Good luck

If you have problems finding the software, please let me know and I will see if I can dig out a copy for you.

Thanks for the responses!

I moved the hard drive to a desktop; which autoruns and delete's virus' on startup.

It cleared something off the drive, and some of the data was then recoverable. Thankfully everything that had to be recovered was; I only lost my iTunes library and some other security related programs, but they can be replaced in time.

It was the college work, and records of the last few years which I needed, and got.

Thanks for all your help,