External hard drives have tons of benefits that make them indispensable to computer users. Some of the benefits include flexibility, ease of use, storage space, portability, increased capacity, and high speed. They are essentially a portable and affordable warehouse for data. But guess what? Lots of your data could get lost because of instances like power surges, formatting, partition corruption, physical damage, broken disks, and deletion(among others). The good news is that external hard disk recovery is possible, given the advent of third-party data recovery software. This software allows you to execute the data recovery process whenever you need to. However, there are some things that you should not do before you attempt to recover data from an external hard drive. They are:
- Stop using the external hard disk to avoid overwriting the lost data.
- Do not attempt to repair bad sectors
- Do not format the hard disk even when you get prompts to do so.
Once you have done all of the above, then you are ready to recover data from an external hard drive. Here are the steps you should take:
Get A Hard Disk Recovery Software
One of the best ways to recover data from an external hard drive is to use the right tools. There are lots of hard disk recovery software out there that will facilitate the recovery process and ensure that the outcome is satisfactory. But before you go about installing any third-party software, you should connect the external hard disk to a working computer using a USB. Ensure that the computer’s operating system recognizes the external hard disk. You then install and launch the hard disk recovery software of your choice. Be sure to choose a reputable data recovery software. Read user reviews to determine this before getting the software. Be sure to install it on the computer on which you intend to execute the data recovery software process. Do not install the software on the external hard drive you intend to recover data from. If the software fails, simply turn off the drive immediately. After installation on the computer, select the external drive, after which you click ”Recover Lost Files” from the tools menu.
Pick An Option
The next step is to select a recovery option and then click the “Start” button. Select the “Recover Deleted Files” option to recover the lost data. This activates the scanning process, which might take a while, depending on the size of the external hard disk drive.
Recover the Data
After you must have executed the steps above, the next logical step is to recover your data. Do this by selecting the data that you want to recover. Next, you right-click on it and select “Copy To.” You then select the location on another storage space (probably the computer you are working on). Then you copy the files to the location. Never try to save the recovered data to the external hard drive from which you recovered it. Should you do so, there will be a conflict that will cause further damage to the external hard drive. You might even lose your data in the process.
Besides using a data recovery tool, you might want to try a riskier method. You could also recover data from an external drive using command prompts (for Windows 10/8/7/Vista/XP). Here’s how:
Connect the external hard disk to a working computer.
Press the following buttons on the keyboard” Windows” and “R”.This activates the Run box
The next step is to enter” cmd” in the Run box, after which you click ”OK.”
Lastly, type attrib-h-r-s/s/d(drive letter):/*.*”, In the “cmd.exe” window. Then press ”Enter.” Your data should be recovered after these steps
Takeaway
Data loss from a failed external hard drive can be devastating. Thankfully it is not the end of the world as it is now possible to recover your data from such an external hard drive. Better still, the recovery process has been made simpler by hard disk recovery programs that facilitate and execute the data recovery process. All you need to do when you have issues with recovering data from an external hard drive is to follow the steps we described in this article. Cheers.
