New
#1
External HDD dead/dying - potential revival/recovery/optimization?
Hey!
I've had this external HDD for close to a year, and to be fair I haven't been as careful with it as I should have been. The HDD has "died" on me two times earlier, this being my third time struggling with it. 99% of the time it won't be recognized or even start up, but a couple of minutes ago it suddenly decided to start up and show me the stored files. I tried to copy some important folders over to my desktop, but it did not respond at all.
Disk manager refused to boot up every single time I tried, but device manager did recognize the drive.
After a couple tries the HDD disconnected.
Even when the disk was connected none of my HDD recovery software recognized the disk except for Recuva, but the disk sadly disconnected when Recuva was starting up (could be the reason for it disconnecting I suppose).
If I manage to get the HDD to be recognized again, is there any way for me to get it into working condition, or should I simply try to format it? How would I get the important folders copied if the HDD doesn't respond at all (other than browsing the files etc.)?
I am a bit stumped as to what I should do as it could be a lot of different things. The symptoms of the drive varies, though I suspect the electronic part of the HDD is faulty.
Any help/thoughts on the matter would be very much appreciated!
Edit; The HDD often appears with a yellow warning triangle then disappears again. Only visible in device manager.