External hard drive broken?

Snookums · 14 Nov 2015 at 18:32

Haven't used my external in a while. Plugged it in to try and watch a film and it just wouldn't work properly. Windows took forever to register it (the green bar in file viewer took a solid two/three minutes to reach the end) and once it completed I couldn't open it. And whenever I do anything to do with that particular drive it crashes kind of. Any idea how I can save what's on it? Or even get it to work?

Paul11 · 14 Nov 2015 at 18:34

one option is to open it, take the drive out and try plugging it directly to your computer

ED209 · 14 Nov 2015 at 18:39

what external HDD is it? not all of them can be opened and connected internally

I had a WD password and the usb ports etc where part of the HDD so couldn't connect it to my PC internally but this was a old HDD.

can try some data recovery programs to try and get anything from it

Snookums · 14 Nov 2015 at 18:57

Honestly I'm not sure the model or anything. I think it's WD that's about all I know. I'll try taking it apart, what data recovery programs do you recommend?

lude1962 · 14 Nov 2015 at 19:27

It still may be in warranty if its a wd, look closer, look in device manager see it its listed as a wdXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Snookums · 14 Nov 2015 at 20:23

I doubt that. It's very old. Maybe 5 years or so.

I'm not at home till tomorrow evening so I'll look then.

ED209 · 14 Nov 2015 at 20:33

Recover My Files data recovery is what I have used a few times