• the Daily hi thread just say hi :)
  • All contentious threads including politics, religion, crime, immigration, laws, elections etc are banned & will be removed. There is still a Gun Related Politics section for relevant topics.

External drive problem - help!

peasemold

peasemold

Super member
Joined
Jul 6, 2022
Messages
476
Reaction score
782
Location
Liskeard, Cornwall
All my bits and bobs are kept on an external drive. Today it's developed a problem, one way beyond my virtually-nonexistent IT knowledge. When I try to access it I get an error message telling me that Windows cannot access Drive E.
There's a load of stuff on there that I'm really not happy about losing, any suggestions as to how to get the data off the disc?
I'd really appreciate help, here.
 
I'm in sort of the same boat, lost some stuff but luckily I have my photos and important stuff backed upon 2 cloud drives, I will be purchasing another cloud drive to replace the duff one. If USB have you tried swapping the port? Or you can use a sata to USB convertor. You can try a recovery program if it powers up. Could be as simple as the cable if USB.
 
Is it an old mechanical drive or an SSD? When was the last time you used it?

Edit: As above, try a different usb cable too, pref a known good one as not all cables are created equal. Any screenshots of the drive in windows or any error messages would be handy. Also are you hooking it up to a laptop or a PC?
 
There used to be a product called restorer to recover data on a drive. I have used it sometime ago now and it did the job.
 
I've used Recuva in the past, but you are SOL if the drive won't be recognised. So try the above, and try it on a different machine. If that doesn't work it could require a specialist to fix. I've heard sometimes the memory chips can be soldered on to a donor board if it's an SSD, might be a mechanical issue if it's an HDD, but neither are cheap nor easy.
 
Thanks for suggestions. I'm on a PC. I've tried different cables, also different machines. I forgot to mention it's telling me "Access is denied" - does that make any difference?
 
peasemold said:
Thanks for suggestions. I'm on a PC. I've tried different cables, also different machines. I forgot to mention it's telling me "Access is denied" - does that make any difference?
Click to expand...
What version of windows are you on out of interest? and I take it the drive is showing up but just unusable? Access denied suggests its a windows privalege issue.

I have seen examples where booting into safe mode has worked FYI, so might be worth giving that a try as a stab in the dark

Few minor edits to my orig post
 
Zenduri said:
What version of windows are you on out of interest? and I take it the drive is showing up but just unusable? Access denied suggests its a windows privalege issue.

I have seen examples where booting into safe mode has worked FYI, so might be worth giving that a try as a stab in the dark

Few minor edits to my orig post
Click to expand...
Win 10 Pro. Yes. I'll give Safe Mode a try.
Thanks.
 
peasemold said:
Win 10 Pro. Yes. I'll give Safe Mode a try.
Thanks.
Click to expand...
A possible fix if that doesnt work is setting the permissions access for the drive. Rather than type it all out i've found a video with the basic jist of what to do. Obviously this is all at your risk but should be pretty harmless.

 
@Zenduri - I tried getting into Safe Mode - tried F8 and Shift - no joy, it won't let me choose SM.
Thanks for the YouTube thing, I'll give that a try tomorrow.
 
peasemold said:
@Zenduri - I tried getting into Safe Mode - tried F8 and Shift - no joy, it won't let me choose SM.
Thanks for the YouTube thing, I'll give that a try tomorrow.
Click to expand...
If you go to start, select power> then hold left shift when hitting restart it should go into safe mode.

Then goto troublshoot> advanced options> startup settings> restart then when it reloads press 4
 
If you can see the drive once the laptop is up and running thats good news.
As others have said maybe a permission / privilege issue?
I assume its not an encrypted drive, where you have to enter a password or code to access it normally?
I always have more than one backup of important stuff, does not help you now I know, but make sure in the future to have at least two backups, ideally in different places.
 
Would it work if you shut the pc down, plug the hard drive usb cable into the pc and then reboot?
 
Zenduri said:
If you go to start, select power> then hold left shift when hitting restart it should go into safe mode.

Then goto troublshoot> advanced options> startup settings> restart then when it reloads press 4
Click to expand...
Tried those, machine won't go into SM.
pjgtech said:
If you can see the drive once the laptop is up and running thats good news.
As others have said maybe a permission / privilege issue?
I assume its not an encrypted drive, where you have to enter a password or code to access it normally?
I always have more than one backup of important stuff, does not help you now I know, but make sure in the future to have at least two backups, ideally in different places.
Click to expand...
It's a desktop, but yes, I can see the drive, and yes, it seems to be - at least partly? - a permission thing. I just tried to save something to the drive, but was told I don't have permission - how do I give myself permission?
All I've done is connect the drive to a different machine.

Thanks for all the help, gents.

EDIT: I've just done as @Zenduri says (but properly, this time ...) and got to SM - it's a memory thing now - I have to remember the steps once into SM - aging, I hate it!
 
Last edited:
HI,

Try this go to search and type control, it should show control panel hit enter, change view in the top right to large.

Look for Administrative tools... open this now go to Computer Management open this...
now go to Disk Management... Can you see the USB drive in this windows

See below as example from my pc disk 1 is the USB drive, if yes at least you know the drive is ok
Also check to see if the drive is showing offline on the grey part where it says Disk1 or whatever what disk number is....
1.JPG

Right click on the blue part for the USB drive and click explore.... does it open or still asking for permission, assuming the drive is not partitioned there should only be one blue part.


Note you can alter permission in this windows too. right click on the blue window again and click on properties you should get as below.
In the top right you will see a tab called Security...


2.JPG



click and see what user has what rights to open the disk and files, click on the user one bye one and see what user has
full permissions.. Example SYSTEM should have should permissions, and Administrator... if you can see your user see what the
permissions are for your user.

Note: to see the user that's logged in do this in search type cmd and hit enter
now type in the box whoami this will show the user that logged in

example:

4.JPG


3.JPG





Note if you try to open on another pc depending how the USB drive was setup it will ask for permission to open drive and files.

Best thing for you to do if I can help is take a screen shot shot the pc for above is your unsure about anything
if in any doubt leave above alone if unsure... it cant hurt anything assuming you do only as above.

Don't change permission's unless your sure what you are doing and be 100% sure you only doing this on USB drive if you do....
 
Last edited:
Depending on how desperate you are (the cost can be £700) if all else fails, you can go to a professional data recovery place.

Try the other solutions first; they're all good advice.

NEVER password-protect your back-ups on a local drive, the type where you plug it into your computer and ALWAYS have two backups of everything.
 
Could also be a Bitlocker problem, try

Press Win + R simultaneously, type services.msc, hit Enter. It will open the local services page.
Here, Find BitLocker Encryption Service, double-clickProperties.
In the Properties page, change the Boot Type into AUTO, clickOK.
Reboot BitLocker Drive Encryption Service.
you may be able access your external hard drive.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top