external hdd unsafely removed

acri

my muppet room mate disconnected my external hdd without safely ejecting it first. naturally, it's b*llocksed. is there any way of salvaging it? i've almost resigned to accepting the worst, but 250GB of media is hard to let go of.

optiplexgx270

Never heard of someone actually screwing up their HD by unplugging it without using the safely remove feature. Personally i have NEVER used it and i'm plugging it in/out at least 3 times a day each time on a different PC with network shares in work with ppl giving out about only half copying tv shows etc. when the connection is broken.

What make is the drive?

And what happens when you plug it in?

byte

Was the HDD being used by an application or similar when it was unplugged?

I often wondered if removing a USB memory device without using Safely Remove would do any harm...

deadsoul

What windows are you using normal windows see's a problem with a hardddrive when starting up just before loading desktop .Plug your drive in and start the computer see if it comes back with a error message then it will scan the drives this should repair the problem .This happen to me on window 2000 and it did work got all my music back .

jor el

By default, Windows optimises all USB disks for quick removal (just plug out, no need for telling Windows first). However, if an app was writing to the disk at the time then it's possible to corrupt that data, never heard of it corrupting an entire disc though.

As mentioned, plug it in and start the PC. If there's problems it should detect and fix, if not run scandisk on the disk when in Windows.

Failing all that, Google for "disk recovery" or "disk repair" and you should find lots of apps that may help.

thebman

I've never heard of anyone messing up external media of any kind by not using safely remove hardware.

Its a good idea not to just unplug it if something is writing to it but other than that, it should be fine to unplug it.

acri

OK, it's a Seagate (I think) 300G multimedia player/external hard drive. Not only did it stop functioning, but my laptop no longer recognises it. I'm using Windows XP and there were no applications running when it was disconnected. I also havn't found any software to recover any of the data on it. I have been told that it CAN be recovered, but I'll need another hard drive with the required space. But I don't want to fork out another E200 for another hard drive. Any ideas?

irlrobins

I've lost a few memory sticks by people not safely removing them.

TerrorFirmer

I use a memory stick several times a day and have never once used safely remove. Just plug it in and out, and make sure that no data is being written or used while you do it - should never present a problem. Plugging out an external hard drive, while its just idle, not doing anything at all - shouldn't have any affect on it at all. If it did, it's extremely rare. Not that that's any consolation...

challengemaster

that happened to me before.. after a lot of fiddling around and messing - i eventually got the drive back working.. not sure if the media was still on it.

jor el

acri wrote:

OK, it's a Seagate (I think) 300G multimedia player/external hard drive. Not only did it stop functioning, but my laptop no longer recognises it. I'm using Windows XP and there were no applications running when it was disconnected. I also havn't found any software to recover any of the data on it. I have been told that it CAN be recovered, but I'll need another hard drive with the required space. But I don't want to fork out another E200 for another hard drive. Any ideas?

Is the drive showing up in Disk Manager? Right click on My Computer and select Manage then choose the Disk Management under Storage section. Does the disk show up here at all, even without a drive letter associated? Also check the device manager for the disk too. If it doesn't show up in either of these then it may not have been the unplugging that damaged it, the disk may have just died.

If the disk doesn't show up though you'll have a hard time recovering anything on it as the recovery application won't be able to see it either. Even if it does, you will need enough free space on another disk to copy the recovered data on to.

I had an external disk that got a slight knock and stopped working in a similar fashion, wouldn't show up in Disk management or Device manager. I brought it back to the shop where I had bought it, PC World, told them it stopped working and they replaced it on the spot.

acri

ok, i no longer care for the material on the hard drive. i just want the space back. however, i can't format the disc as it does not appear in My Computer. I plug it in, it clicks 3/4 times, stops running (yet remains on), then the USB Device Not Recognised tab appears. upon opening the tab, it shows:

-USB Root Hub (6 ports)
-Unused Port
-Unused Port
-Unused Port
-Unknown Device
-Unused Port
-Unused Port

i think this port might have something to do with the drivers to run the disc. these drivers are already installed, but upon plugging in the drive for the first time after it was unsafely disconnected, it tried and failed to install the drivers.

i don't know whats up and want to fix it by myself if possible. i'm also getting impatient and want to start rebuilding what i had. i miss the venture brothers and arrested development so... please help.

mazdafarl

with some external hdrives the are bassically a shell with a standard ide conntector to the HD, try and open it take out hd connect internally, make primary drive and format it from cmd

sticker

brim4brim wrote:

I've never heard of anyone messing up external media of any kind by not using safely remove hardware.

Its a good idea not to just unplug it if something is writing to it but other than that, it should be fine to unplug it.

I agree...

I've five external HD's and power them on/off whenever I need content off them... Needless to say I wouldn't disconnect if the drive was actively doing something, but I never use the remove feature of XP