My External Usb Drive Showing As Unallocated Space

[jfenwick]

Ok, for my 2600k upgrade I backed everything up onto a data 500GB HD from my windows 7 Pro 64bit. Once my SSD came in I installed windows on it and then plugged in the 500GB data drive. Unforutnately it didn`t show up and I could only find it listed in disc management as a 500gb unallocated space HDD. Figuring this was something odd about it being plugged in as a secondary drive I put it back into the external USB drive but neither the new or the original system would recognize it other than in disc management as unallocated space. I went and plugged the external drive into my XP system...samething. Any ideas about how to get this data back. It`s very important stuff and I don`t want to lose it.

Thanks guys,

 

[MindoverMaster]

Did you try to initialize it?

 

[jfenwick]

Yeah, it prompts me to format it.

 

[MindoverMaster]

Must be corrupted. Try Recuva, see if you can get anything off of it.

 

[jfenwick]

I'll give it a try but there were no indications of a problem before. I've only been using for a couple of weeks as a backup drive for programs, photos, etc... never an issue.

 

[jfenwick]

No go on Recuva, prompted to format. Any other ideas?

 

[MindoverMaster]

Did you try this in a different computer?

 

[jfenwick]

Yup, two had windows 7 and the other was xp

 

[MindoverMaster]

You mentioned an external? did you try it internal as well on different systems?

 

[jfenwick]

Only on Win 7, the XP system is really hard to get at to swap out a drive.