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Written By Mithilesh Tata
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Updated on December 14th, 2023
How to Recover Deleted or Lost Data from External Hard Disk
In this blog, we’ll discuss on the deleted or lost external drive data recovery, how to recover files from external hard disk, causes of data loss and the fixes and methods to avoid loss of data from an external hard disk drive.
Overviews on Lost or Deleted External Hard Drive Data
External Hard Drives play a vital role when it comes to storing data on the computer. They save every bit and all type of data. Also, these are portable and light in weight so that they can be used seamlessly for data transfer.
When there is a point to store and move a large amount of data, there comes the role of external hard disks because of their versatility. External hard drives effectively store the data backups and tend to ensure the safety of data even in case of accidental deletion, computer crash, virus attacks etc. But, there are many instances when these hard disks lose the data because of certain corruption or damage.
Causes of Data Loss on an External Hard Drive
There is no guarantee that your hard drive is absolutely safe for the storage. You may face data loss problems at any time. So, knowing the exact reasons for loss of data can help us to sort out the issue. Any of the below-mentioned situations can be dangerous to stored data on the external hard disk. Therefore, it is recommended to keep a backup of your precious data.
- Accidental file deletion or format
- Virus attack.
- Damage due to a power failure or surge
- Critical file system structures loss or corruption.
- Unexpected system shutdown or application failure.
- Partition structures are damaged or lost.
It will become a pathetic situation when the system is not able to detect or recognize the external hard drive and returns the error messages such as “RAW drive is not initialized”, “The drive cannot be accessed” or “the drive is not formatted” etc. All these occur due to corruption in the hard drive which may be due to any reasons.
So, let’s have a look at how to recover lost data from external hard disk.
Manual Methods to Recover Deleted Data from External Disk Drive
The first manual fix that you should try out to recover lost data from external hard disk is:
1. First, plug in your hard drive into some other USB port. If it works, there is a problem with the USB port of your system.
2. Try to connect the external hard disk to another computer.
3. Assign a new drive letter to the external hard drive. For doing this:
- Go to My Computer.
- Note down the letters of already assigned letters of drives.
- Now, hit a click on “Map a network drive”. Doin this, a new window will be opened, click on the “Drive” button.
- Along the drop-down, choose a drive letter that has not been already used.
- After that, navigate to the unrecognized external hard disk drive and click on “OK”.
- Close the window by clicking on the Finish button.
- After all, these procedure, Restart the system after connecting the drive.
These fixes make your drive recognizable. However, a prompt message may occur to format the drive so that you can use it again. But, there is no need to worry. You can be ensure that any of the data haven’t lost even after the formatting.
Using a Professional Data Recovery to Recover Lost Data from External Drive.
You can simply adopt the manual methods to recover lost data from external hard disk that has gone undetectable or unrecognized in the system. However, there are many times when you are not able to retrieve the lost data. In that scenario, you can go for a professional Windows Data Recovery software to recover lost data from external hard disk.
Bottom Line
Coming to conclusion, I would recommend to maintain at least 2 backup copies of your precious data. Also, don’t disturb or meddle with the hard drive when it is in use. Use the above fixes to successfully recover lost data from external hard disk. Hope this article is helpful to the users struggling to find a solution for External hard drive recovery.
About The Author:
Mithilesh Tata is dedicated to making the lives of his customers as simple as possible. He enjoys learning about new applications and utilities that can help people protect their data. Mithilesh also has a strong grasp on email migration & data recovery. He enjoys validating every component of the software, technical materials, and anything else that has to do with his working life.
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