External Hard Drive Recovery: How to Recover Data from External Hard Drive [2023]

Can data from external hard drive be recovered?

External hard drives are often used on Windows systems to expand home computers' storage space. They are a fabulous alternative for storing personal data that you don’t want to be on your computer's hard disk drive. Data is also shared effortlessly on an external hard drive with others.

Many people save data on an external device and want to store it for future use. However, the external drive can sometimes be damaged or corrupted for various reasons, which can put your data at risk of data loss, like other storage devices.

Some cases are quickly addressed to get lost data recovered. Do you know if data from external hard drive can be recovered? The answer is yes. It's easy to recover external hard drive data with available backup files or data recovery tools. 

What causes data loss on an external hard drive?

The following factors may result in corrupted or damaged external hard drives: file transfer interruption, virus or malware infection, read & write head crash, corrupted file and file system, etc. 

There is a list of common challenging disk problems and the types of damage they cause. You can use this list to decide whether you can try to retrieve lost data by yourself or contact a recovery service if your external hard drive gets dead due to physical reasons.

✪ Accidental file deletion: This kind of logical damage usually does not lead to a dead hard drive. If you take action fast, data can typically be retrieved using operating system capabilities or applications for data recovery.

✪ Formatted or reformatted external hard disk--If you format your Western Digital or Samsung external hard drives mistakenly, the contents that contained it effectively have caused logical damage. Fortunately, data recovery software can help you retrieve data from the formatted drive or partition. The important thing is to stop using the drive until you have recovered.

✪ Corrupted files and files systems-- A corrupted files system is a type of logical damage that can stop your external hard drive from operating. File system corruption may result in a crashed drive not allowing you to boot your computer. Data recovery software can work this type of problem out.

✪ Mechanical damage—Internal parts of hard drives move at high speed and can be less reliable as they age. Read/write heads on a hard drive hover over the surface of the platters that store your information, and data loss may happen if they contact the platter. Other typical physical defects include interior wear and abrasion of the plates:
-The spindle locks up, which controls the hard drive's spinning.
-Actuator arms do not work correctly.
-Noises from the read/write head faults, clicking or beeping on the drive.
This type of damage often causes your system's failure to recognize the device. If your system cannot recognize the drive, you will have to restore your data with a recovery service.

✪ Power surges-- A power spike may damage your external hard drive and lead to a broken storage device requiring data recovery software to restore data. The drive seems dead after being exposed to an intense power spike.

If your external hard drive is logically damaged or corrupted, there are methods to help you to get data back. However, if it is caused by mechanical or physical damage, it may work to send the disk to the nearest tech support company.

How to recover data from external hard drive?

When you lose external hard drive files, the most important thing is to stop using the external hard drive immediately because the continuous operation will make the lost or deleted files overwritten or covered by new data.

Then you need to distinguish your external hard disk issues, logical damage, or physical damage. Follow the methods to recover lost data from an external hard drive. Whatever the causes of the corrupted external hard drive, you need to recover the corrupted hard drive first and then retrieve lost data.

Method 1. Recover data from external hard drive via data recovery software

If external hard drive data loss happens due to logical error, getting data back with a reliable data recovery tool is easy. MyRecover is it!

Users could easily use this tool to recover data from an external hard drive in Windows 7/8/10/11 and Windows Server., even for those without any computer knowledge.  You only need to download the software and make a few clicks, and the deleted data will be back soon.

MyRecover is designed by a more than ten-year experienced R&D team to solve all kinds of data loss scenarios. It helps users recover more than 200 types of files, including images, videos, documents, pdf, word, ppt, excel, etc., on hard drives and other storage devices. 

With a high success rate and fast scanning speed, MyRecover has won many users' reputations.

Step 1. Download and install MyRecover on your computer. Hover the mouse over the drive and click Scan to scan.

Step 2. Then the scanning process will start automatically. You can immediately complete the process if you find the data you want to recover.

Step 3. Select the data you want to restore and click "Recover x files" to set a destination folder to save the recovered files. 

Method 2. Recover data from external hard drive via Windows File Recovery

Windows File Recovery is a command-line app released by Microsoft. It’s a free Windows 10 and above utility to recover deleted or lost files from internal and external hard drives. It requires users to input commands accordingly based on the File System and lost scenarios.

However, it’s not easy for everyone to use without a graphical user interface. Therefore, here is a free & tiny tool-WinfrGUI. It has invoked the function of Windows File Recovery to recover deleted files with a user-friendly interface. Users could quickly recover deleted/lost data with the help of WinfrGUI.

Step 1. Download and install WinfrGUI on your computer. It’s free.

Step 2. Select the external hard drive to scan and set a destination path to save the recovered files.

Step 3. Choose a scanning method according to the file system, Quick Scan & Deep Scan.

The non-NTFS file system could only use Deep Scan. You could click “Advanced Settings” to specify file types and folders to scan.

Step 4. Click “Start Recovery” to begin the scanning process. You can view the restored files when finished.

Method 3. CMD for External hard drive recovery

A corrupted external hard disk can be fixed by formatting, but data will always be lost. If your data is lost and you merely want to repair your corrupted external hard drive. Besides, your files in the External hard drive may be hidden instead of lost. You'll be able to follow the steps to fix some file system errors and recover hidden files from the external hard drive with Command Prompt. 

Step 1: Connect the external hard disk to your computer.

Step 2: Type “CMD” in the search box and right-click "Command Prompt" to choose "Run as administrator". Or press the Windows key + R and type “CMD” to run the command prompt.

Step 3: Type "chkdsk ‘drive letter’ /f" and press Enter.

Step 4: Press Y until the command line reappears.

Step 5: Type the drive letter and press Enter.

Step 6: Type “Drive letter:/>attrib – h-r-s/s/d*.*”.

This command will create a new folder on the external hard drive to store the recovered files.

Method 4. Windows System File Checker to fix corrupted system files

System File Checker is a helpful tool Microsoft offers to scan the disk and repair missing or corrupted system files.

For Windows 10, Windows 8.1, or Windows 8, you need to run the inbox Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) before running Windows System File Checker. For Windows 7 or Windows Vista, you can run Windows System File Checker directly.

Step 1: Run DISM. Type DISM in the search box, type the following command and then press Enter. It may take minutes to complete the process.

DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth

Step 2: Run CMD. Press the Windows key + R on your keyboard. Type the following command, and then press Enter:

SFC /scannow

This command will scan all protected system files and replace corrupted files with a cached copy in a compressed file folder at %WinDir%\System32\dllcache. You can click here for more details about this tool.

Method 5. Show hidden files on the external hard drive

Sometimes, users may set to hide some files on an external hard drive to protect confidential data. Using this method to recover the hidden files on the external hard disk.

Step 1: For Windows 10, press Windows key + E to run Windows File Explorer. Then click “View” to open File Explorer Options.

For Windows 7, press the Start button, then click on "Control Panel" > "Appearance and Personalization". Select Folder Options, then select “View”.

Step 2: Under Advanced settings, select “Show hidden files, folders, and drives”, click "Apply", then click "OK". After a while, you'll see the hidden files on the external hard drive.

Method 6. Recover data if external hard drive partition loss

If the partitions in your external hard drive are lost due to accident deletion or unknown reasons, the best and easiest way to resolve this issue is to use third-party professional software-AOMEI Partition Recovery Wizard. It can help you to recover the partitions and data together. Besides, repairing a corrupted MBR in an external hard drive is achievable with AOMEI Partition Assistant.

To recover lost partitions in an external hard drive via AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional, you can follow the steps via AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional, follow the steps detailed below. You can go ahead and download the demo version first.

Step 1: Install and run AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional.

Step 2: Choose Partition Recovery Wizard on the left panel and click the drive you want to restore. Click “Next”.

Step 3: Select a search mode. You could select Fast Search the first time because it saves time. Then, click on “Next”.

Step 4: It will display the list of all lost partitions. You can select the one you want to retrieve.

Step 5: After completing the partition recovery process, click “Finish” to exit this window after seeing the “Congratulations” page. Then you can go to File Explorer to check the lost or deleted partitions.

The lost data is extremely easy to be overwritten or covered by new data. If you didn’t make any new operation on the external hard drive, the data in the partition would be back simultaneously.

Is It possible to recover Data from a dead external hard drive?

The first thing is to define whether an external hard drive is dead. An external hard disk, for example, is not detectable; it can produce noises; it answers too slowly, or it cannot respond at all. It is impossible to declare with certainty that it is dead in all these situations, but it can be asserted.

In other words, you should try to get off the data on the external hard drive first because there is a possibility of data loss. If you could recover lost data via data recovery software, your drive wasn't dead, only temporarily stunned in this scenario.

The scenario is different if the disk is ejected and your operating system cannot identify the drive after that. Send the drive to the nearest technology supporter if you have almost no choice of using a professional data recovery service to restore your data. They should be helpful.

What to do if your external hard drive becomes corrupted

Not all faults with the hard drive cause disastrous data loss. However, some problems, which may at first merely be bothersome, can worsen and lead to more significant issues.

Here are some symptoms of problems with your external hard disk, which may require your attention because it indicates your external hard drive is becoming corrupt. It is not advisable to ignore them.

When your external hard drive starts showing any of these symptoms, you’d better build a backup of the external hard drive that can be used for potential data recovery.

You can simply copy the files to another hard drive or choose a professional backup software to complete, like AOMEI Backupper.

Another method is to format the external hard drive. Formatting could eliminate the corruption and make the external hard disk normally used again.

Step 1: Connect the external hard drive to your computer and open File Explorer.

Step 2: Right-click the external hard drive and choose the "Format" option.

Step 3: Select “NTFS” and tick "Quick Format" on the format window. Click "Start".

How to protect external hard drive data & avoid data loss

✍ Partition of the external hard drive

If you have an external hard drive excess of more than 1 TB, it’s recommended to partition it to prevent the data from losing simultaneously and manage the drive easily. You can use the AOMEI Partition Assistant to partition your external hard drive in an easy way by following the wizard.

Right-click the external hard drive and select “Quick Partition”. Then, you can set up the partition count, disk type (MBR or GPT), partition size, file system, and partition label. After that, click on “Start Partitioning”.

✍ Run antivirus software and scan all your external hard drives regularly

It is recommended that you run antivirus software on your computer to scan all your devices. It protects your device and data from malware attacks and viruses timely.

✍ Create an extra backup of external hard drive data

As mentioned, creating a backup with AOMEI Backupper effectively keeps your vital data safe. Don’t put all eggs in one basket. You can store them on different hard drives.

✍ Transfer and Sync your data on Mult Cloud Drive

If it’s not convenient for you to store data in different places, MultCloud would be an alternative. You can transfer and manage your multiple cloud files with one app. MultCloud enables you to transfer files between cloud drives, like Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive, and keep two cloud services synced.

External hard drive not showing up in Windows 10

Let's talk about what to do if Windows doesn't detect your external hard device before going into the details of data recovery. You can take several actions to solve the problem of an external hard drive not showing up on the computer.

Check the connection and cables—Ensure your device is connected to your computer. There is no harm in changing a different cable to check whether it works.

Try a different USB port or computer—Maybe the USB port is not good, or the computer can’t recognize the external hard drive. Try a different USB port or computer that can solve this problem.

Update device drivers—Outdated drivers can influence your computer to detect the external hard drive. Click to update your USB device drivers.

Format the external hard drive—The operating system can detect corrupted or Raw hard disks after being formatted. Be careful that this method can wipe data on the external hard drive.

If your external hard drive is not showing up in Windows 10, open Disk Management (press Windows key+ R on your keyboard, type “diskmgmt.msc”) to check the hard drive's condition first and then take methods accordingly.

If the external hard drive is showing in Disk Management, you can take the following three methods to make it visible in Windows 10 File Explorer.

► Assign a drive letter to the external hard drive

Right-click the partition that doesn’t have a drive letter and select “Change Drive Letter and Path...” and then click on “Add”, select a drive letter, and click “OK” to assign a drive letter.

► Format the external hard drive

You can format the external hard drive, as mentioned before. You’d better make a backup because formatting will cause data loss.

► Rebuild MBR without data loss via AOMEI Partition Assistant

MBR or Master Boot Record is necessary for a hard drive. If the partition table is damaged by virus attacks or improper operation, the hard drive might show as unknown. Right-click the external hard drive and select “Rebuild MBR”. Follow the wizard to complete the process.

If your external hard drive is not showing up in Windows 10 Disk Management:

• you need to check the Windows driver via Device Manager to update the driver.
• Examine the USB port and enable the USB Device in BIOS.
• Diagnose the external hard drive with professional hard drive diagnostic software.

Conclusion

A corrupted external hard drive with inaccessible content is a regular problem with many people using it. Using portable storage devices, you may have to retrieve data from a dead external hard drive. In this article, you can use the above methods to recover deleted files from the hard drive. What is also worth noticing is that AOMEI Partition Assistant keeps your disk management effortless and effective.

If the external hard drive contains vital files, data protection on an external drive should be considered strongly. It’s never a bad idea to take backups with AOMEI Backupper or MultCloud to keep your data safe.