My hard drive appears as a local disk

nanou -  
alec1025 Posted messages 8 Registration date   Status Membre Last intervention   -
Hello,
I'm frustrated because my hard drive is showing up as a local disk instead of a hard drive and is no longer being recognized.

Configuration: Windows / Chrome 46.0.2490.86

1 réponse

Sannin_WD Posted messages 4316 Status Membre 758
 
Hello nanou :)

Reading your message made me think of an external hard drive that was disconnected from the computer without using the “Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media” option… If the stubborn drive is not an external drive (connected to the PC via USB), please correct me :) Knowing this detail would be very important.

Before going further, I suggest some checks to better understand the situation and what we are dealing with:

> check Disk Management (the drive connected to the computer) to see what information the drive shows there. A screenshot would be appreciated :) Right-click > Properties and let me know the file system, please

> If the drive appears as Local Disk, I assume it has no letter. We could start with a test: from Disk Management > right-click on the drive > Change Drive Letter and Paths > Add to assign a letter to the drive.

If it’s an external drive, it’s worth testing by connecting the drive to another PC or simply to another USB port on your computer. Can you see the external hard drive appearing in My Computer? If the attempt is unsuccessful, feel free to share the details with me, please :).

Also, don’t hesitate to run a diagnostic on the drive using the HDD manufacturer's utility to check its health status.

We will proceed cautiously and slowly ;) The most important thing would be to recover as much content as you have on your external drive. For this reason (and depending on the results of your tests), I’m sending you an article that might interest you: https://forums.commentcamarche.net/forum/affich-37640569-recuperer-des-donnees-sur-disque-dur-et-cle-usb

Keep me updated on your progress, please :)

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If you have found the answer to your question, feel free to click on Resolved to help other members with the same issue ;)
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alec1025 Posted messages 8 Registration date   Status Membre Last intervention  
 
Good evening!

I have the same issue as Nanou :/
I have a Western Digital My Passport 1TB external hard drive with a lot of personal data on it...
I have already performed several chkdsk /f and /r commands and nothing...
I downloaded WD Drive Utilities and it recognizes the external hard drive...
Moreover, there’s something that bothers me: the external hard drive is recognized as RAW in the disk manager but chkdsk identifies it as NTFS....

I’m sharing different screenshots here to provide as much detail as possible:
disk manager: http://hpics.li/fcb7b90
WD Drive Utilities: http://hpics.li/01ebde3
CHKDSK: http://hpics.li/6434bd2

Thank you in advance!

Best regards,

alec1025
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Sannin_WD Posted messages 4316 Status Membre 758
 
Hello alec1025 and thanks for the very informative screenshots :)

You’ve made various attempts, which is a good instinct! :)

It is true that the switch to RAW is not a good sign. RAW means that the data is unformatted and the HDD remains unreadable and inaccessible for Windows (for the OS). The reasons for this are never straightforward… unplugging without using the option to safely remove the device, damage to the HDD due to impacts, etc.

If the complete test of the HDD via WD Drive Utilities failed, it would be interesting to know the S.M.A.R.T. values.

@alec1025, before continuing with other tests and diagnostics (any attempt to make the HDD work risks damaging the contents it holds), I would suggest you try to recover the data the HDD contains. A look at this topic https://forums.commentcamarche.net/forum/affich-16244777-disque-dur-externe-raw-une-solution would give good ideas ;)

@alec1025, once your important contents are recovered, we could redo the diagnostics via Data Lifeguard Diagnostics for Windows (quick test + extended test) and check the S.M.A.R.T. values. Please post them here :) Before publishing the screenshot, make sure it does not contain personal data like the HDD serial number.

Fingers crossed!
A+ and have a good week!
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alec1025
 
Hello! Here I am again!!! (damn hotel connection...)
Well, it's not great, I've lost more than half of my files...
I'm currently recovering the rest...

I'll publish the S.M.A.R.T screenshots by tonight, I hope

In any case, thank you very much for your help!
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alec1025 Posted messages 8 Registration date   Status Membre Last intervention  
 
Hello!
I'm back with the additional tests!
I'll let you get an idea of the mess it is...
http://hpics.li/527691c

Thank you for your help.
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Sannin_WD Posted messages 4316 Status Membre 758
 
Hi @alec1025, and sorry for the delayed response :)

Indeed, the results obtained are not optimistic. The message "too many bad sectors detected" means that the hard drive in question is extremely worn out, and we risk pushing it to its limits.

Any further testing will only make it operate, and any additional effort could worsen the situation and render the data stored on it completely inaccessible. For this reason, and depending on the importance you attach to the contents, I can only suggest you hand over the hard drive to a specialized data recovery lab. If you choose this option, I will send you the list of WD partners http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=nyARHA.

If the hard drive is under warranty, once the data is recovered, you could benefit from a return of the equipment (RMA) directly from the manufacturer.

Come back with good news!
A+
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