external hardware recovery

[aheat613]

hi i have a maxtor 500 gb external.
and oneday my computer start not to recognize the drive.
i would plug in usb and it never pops anything up on screen or recognize it.
then i petitioned i cant' exactly remember what i did but then it recognized
but asked me to formatt it. now when i plug it in it keep asking me to format it.
and i do not really want to lose that 500 gb worth of stuff that's in there. would i really have to formatt it?
is there anyway i can recover those data? thank you very much

and also when i try to open it with some data recovery programs it only tells me you have selected damaged disk.

 

[carnageX]

You could try a few things: Run a chkdsk /r on the drive from an XP disc's recovery console (or if you can still get to it in the My Computer window, then right cilck the drive > Properties > tools > Check Now under 'Error Checking' > check both boxes > hit Ok, and it will prompt you that it will have to be done on the next reboot most likely, so choose to do so, and then reboot the PC and let it check the disc).

Or you can try to boot off of a Linux LiveCD and see if it can see the data so that you are able to recover it that way.

 

[aheat613]

hi have done that so and it didn't do anything... grrr and when i go to properties i realized used and unused section both says 0 bytes. do i really have to formatt it like it says? after formatting will i have any chance of recovering any files? than you for your reply it was very helpful

 

[KSoD]

Yes you will have to format it. After that there is a chance that you can recover the files. As long as you dont write any other information to the drive before running the Recovery software.

 

[S0ULphIRE]

Make sure you do a quick format btw. Also, if the drive size is still being correctly identified then you're safe. BUT, if the size is incorrect then sorry to say it but you're stuffed.

 

[aheat613]

thank you guys so much for the response