External HD - not recognized

[SbUniT]

Hi,

I have a 500GB Exernal Hard Disc and have not been using it for a long while.
I found it somwhere last weekend and tried it on my Mac, Dell, or network. None of them were able to read it successfully.

The indication light was on. From the sound came out of the external HD, it sounds like it is working.

I also tried switching th mini-USB cable but it did not work.

I remember in the past, it always took a while to read this external HD and I used to use it for Mac Timemachine backup. Now i'm completely clueless how I should do to make it work again!

Any advise?

[tgell]

If you do not need the info on the drive. Install Minitools Partition Wizard. Reboot with the drive connected and see if it detects your external drive. If it does, delete the partition(s), repartition the drive and if you are going to use it with Windows, format to NTFS, otherwise format to FAT32 if you plan on using it with a MAC or PC.

http://www.partitionwizard.com/free-...n-manager.html

[andyman35]

If tgell's suggestion doesn't work then remove the hard disk from the cradle and try directly installing it in your system.If you're able to access it then you can buy a replacement HDD cradle for a few pounds.

[bgoodman4]

Every so often I run into this sort of problem with one of my external drives and I find that if I assign a drive letter to the drive it corrects the problem. I used to know how to do this in years gone by but I now use Zentimo xStorage Manager and I can do this easily by simply right clicking on the unrecognized drive from within the Zentimo interface and selecting properties.

There is a trial period so perhaps you can use it to correct your problem, who knows, you might just like it enough to pick up a licence. Great little program IMO but of course a search of the net will provide you with a way to fix this issue without it (if this is indeed the source of the problem that is).

Here is a link to the publishers home page
http://zentimo.com/

[littleturle]

I have a 500GB Buffalo HD and it was not recognized either.
I tried using my mac to repair the disc.
however, it says it could not be repaired.
i'm trying to figure a way to retrieve the data from the HD and then format it again and see if it works.

Any recommedation on the data recovery app?
for my particular case here, this is a 500GB on Mac system and thus i'm seeking a Mac app to do data recovery. the data is mostly time machine backups.

it would be so much easier if it was a NTFS system and i know how to handle that one.

[tgell]

You can try recovering the data using PhotoREC. It supports HFS+. Make sure you recover the files to a drive other than the external drive.

PhotoREC

PhotoREC step by step

PhotoREC can also be run from a LiveCD such as Parted Magic.

A program that is free for the first GB is Minitools Power Data Recovery for the MAC. It also supports HFS+.

[claykin]

Originally Posted by littleturle

Any recommedation on the data recovery app?
.

www.spinrite.com $90 but a great tool for your toolbox. I have made many unreadable drives readable again using Spinrite.