How to Recover Data From a Crashed External Hard Drive

A crashed external USB hard drive might seem a difficult situation, but you can attempt to repair the drive and recover the data yourself before resorting to an expensive computer technician. Accomplish this by repairing the drive structure using the disk management tools in your operating system, which allows you to salvage some or all of the drive's contents.

Print this article

Instructions

- 1
  
  Right-click "Start" and click "Explore" in Vista or "Open Windows Explorer" in Windows 7.
- 2
  
  Click "Computer," right-click the external drive and click "Properties."
- 3
  
  Click "Tools" and click "Check Now" under "Error Checking."
- 4
  
  Check "Automatically fix file system errors" and "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors." This repairs the drive, allowing you to recover data.

Windows Help Central.com: Windows Vista Chkdsk

Photo Credit Thomas Northcut/Photodisc/Getty Images

Comments

Nesha Aug 11, 2011
HI!
nayan.sufism Mar 29, 2011
hi go to ur disk management in ur computer management then select ur external hard drive from there and then right click after that select change drive letters and path then manage it
Wuyi Mar 28, 2011
my external drive is not discovered by the computer when plugged in but its disc spins and the indicator comes on.... what should i do to get my files off it?

How to Recover Files From a Crashed Hard Drive
Clicking sound coming from your disk, or unable to access your family photos, or music? Here are some steps to save time...
How to Recover Data From an External Hard Drive
The hard drive is not the most vital part of a computer, but it is probably the most important part to you....
How to Recover Data From a Western Digital External Hard Drive
A hard drive contains all of your data--every paper you have written, every digital picture, every music and video file and all...
About a Crashed External Hard Drive
The hard drive has the shortest life expectancy of computer hardware components. Knowing why it fails, and how to make data recovery...
How to Recover Data From an External Hard Disk
An external hard disk, just like an internal hard disk, can have data accidentally deleted or formatted over. To recover data from...
How to Transfer Files From Internal Hard Drive to an External Hard Drive
This article will teach you about external hard drives and how to transfer files from your internal hard drive to the external...
How to Recover Data From a Mac External Hard Drive
Bad stuff happens, even to good people. And it seems there is nothing worse (or more inconvenient, frustrating and annoying) then having...
How to Backup and Restore with an External Hard Drive
You may have heard it is beneficial to back up your computer data. But what exactly does this mean? It is difficult...
How to Fix a Hard Drive Crash
Many people take their hard drives for granted. They are delicate, complicated pieces of machinery that can fail over time. Sometimes a...
How to Recover Data From a Fried External Hard Drive
I just wanted to day that this solution worked for me! I'd been in a panic. My external hard drive appeared to...
How to Recover Lost Data on an External Hard Drive
An external hard drive is a separate drive that you connect to your computer. You can transfer files of various types to...
Western Digital External Hard Drive Data Recovery
Western Digital is one of the popular external hard drive manufacturers. It is important to create a backup copy of all of...
Data Recovery From a Crashed Hard Drive
When your computer hard drive crashes, you can often recover the data from the hard drive as long as the crash wasn't...
How to Find and Repair Bad Sectors on a Hard Drive
Your computer can become slow and bogged down for many reasons. According to the official Microsoft Web site, one prevalent cause of...
How Do I Retrieve My Files From a Crashed Hard Drive?
Hard drive crashes can be mild or severe, resulting in no visible damage to the drive's contents whatsoever or resulting in a...
How to Retrieve Files From an External Hard Drive
An external hard drive is a device that acts as an extension of your computer. It is used to create another location...
How to Recover Data From the Hard Drive of a Crashed Computer
You must realize there are two reasons for your computer to crash. There was either a software malfunction (i.e. Windows is broken)...
How to Repair an External Hard Drive
As with any piece of electronic equipment, plenty of things can go wrong with an external hard drive. There are two types...
How to Restore Data From a Crashed Hard Drive
A hard drive is one of the main components of a computer and the main secondary storage or external memory unit. It...

How to Recover Data From a Crashed External Hard Drive

Other People Are Reading

Instructions

References

More Like This

Comments

You May Also Like

Related Ads

Kid-Approved iPad Apps by Mom.me

You May Like