Removable HD failed to be recognized

Clarifications

Is there any [b]Important[/b] Data on this drive or would it just be [i]Nice[/i] to get it back?

If it has Important data on the drive you need to pack it up and send it to a Data Recovery Service and pay them to recover your Data. It's the only way to deal with Important Data and generally makes things cheaper than if you mess with things and then still need to send it off.

If the Data would just be [b]Nice[/b] to get back and you can live without it, you can try opening the Command Prompt and entering [b]chkdsk /r[/b] then pressing Enter and run the Check Disc Utility on the Drive and attempt to repair it. If that doesn't work you can attack the drive with a Data Recovery Application and try to recover the Data that way but it may take a very long time and be expensive to buy the software. 1 Program can take up to 6 days to scan a working HDD and copy any Data that it finds on that drive off it. But on the other hand some Data Recovery Programs could rebuild the Partition Tables in as little as 15 minutes or maybe even less depending on who wrote the application.

Here is a short list of the better commercial applications to recover Data but there are many more available out there However I can not speak of who well they do or do not work

http://tinyurl.com/273ay5

http://tinyurl.com/rmvrv

http://tinyurl.com/yvrsl

http://tinyurl.com/yyk8cm

http://tinyurl.com/382vm

http://tinyurl.com/ynwnel

http://tinyurl.com/nc4kx

http://tinyurl.com/2wox7l

http://tinyurl.com/374d8b

http://tinyurl.com/djw6u

http://tinyurl.com/f73se

http://tinyurl.com/8bd3f

http://tinyurl.com/afu2j

While the last 2 are from the same company they are very different products. Win Hex should only be considered for use by someone who knows Hex Inside Out while Davory is a great cheap General Purpose Application.

Personally I prefer the On Track Option but it's anything but cheap. However because I use this type of software a lot it's paid for itself many times over by now, for a cheaper option Spin Rite from Gibson Research or Stella have both very good reputations by other TR members.

As for the current problem the most likely thing is that the user has not used the Safely Remove Option before unplugging the HDD or turning off the computer and this has corrupted the Partition Table son the HDD. If you do not use the Safely Remove Option and Dismount the HDD before disconnecting it or turning off the computer you will be back in this situation very shortly as it is the only sure way to corrupt the Partition Tables on an External Hard Disc Drive.

Also just to be sure you should download the Drive Makers Testing Utility to check the function of the HDD to make sure that it's actually working you can do that from here

http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=287

Just click on the makers name.

Col

Would be nice with a possibility to store some 20 standard answers here at TR, so you'd just need a couple of clicks to prepare a good answer to some of the most common questions and situations.