I Did Something Bad To My External HDD's & Can't Access Them.

Greetings.
I have two external HDD docks. One is a single bay (USB 2.0) and the other is a dual bay (USB 3.0) I have two 3.5 inch HDD's and one 2.5 inch HDD, that I use the docks for. I will name the HDD's thus: 1x 3.5 is #0. 1x 3.5 is #2. The 2.5 is #23.
Using the two bay dock, I placed HDD #0 in it and plugged it into my laptop & turned on the power to it. The HDD was recognized by Windows 10 Pro 64bit. I looked into a couple of folders and then closed explorer. I then inserted #23 (the 2.5 HDD) into the second bay. After windows recognised it, I clicked on it and got an error message. The message said "You need to format the disk in drive G before you can use it. I Backed out. I tried the three HDD's in various bays in both docks. HDD #2 works in all bays in both docks. As HDD #2 is fine, I will not refer to it again.

I get the same message with HDD #23. Other messages I have got from those two HDD's are "G:\ is not accessible. The volume does not contain a recognized file system. Please make sure that all required file system drivers are loaded and that the volume is not corrupted" and "G:\ is not accessible. The parameter is incorrect".

I have been searching the forum for help but thought I would post my problem before attempting any fixes. I think I know what has caused this.... ME

As I wrote what I had done I suddenly realized that I have 'hot swapped' HDD #23 by placing it into the dock whilst it was powered on.

Am I correct? If so, I must blame my age of 71 years for that slip. I have, up until this point, only ever had one HDD in the dock at a time.

Both HDD's have a lot of files, which I would like to recover by fixing the HDD's or getting the files off onto a new USB 3.0 external HDD I have. To complicate a possible fix on HDD #23, it is encrypted with BitLocker. The other HDD is not.

Can anyone be of assistance, please?

PS. It is late here in NZ and I am tired so I am off to bed. Will come back into this thread in the morning.

It's likely they have lost their partition tables you can get free software to recover this you need specific partition recovery. It's also possible you could actually have broke the drive go-to makers site and download their disk test specific to their drive

Can you give me the names of those specific partition recovery programs as I don't know of any?
A Google search may just end up with me downloading a second-rate program.

One HDD is Seagate & the other WD. I will go get their Disk testing software.

Thank you.

There arntbad one but often you may need to try more than one to get results as some use different way of doing it free partition recovery software - Google Search

Thank you for that information. At the moment, I am running SeaTools against the Seagate HDD. Short Test = Pass.
SMART = Fail. Short Generic = Pass. I am now going to run Long Generic.

I will run all the non-write tests on both HDD's and report back. The results may help you decide on my next best options. In the meantime, I will download some Free Partition Recovery Software.

It will be some time before I report back.

Berton said:

It is possible to break the 2 sets of contacts on a SATA drive if not inserting properly, not aligning the drive in the dock properly. I usually use Thermaltake BacX docks but recently got a USB 3 Eaxer dual-port with with a 3-port Hub in it. It also has a Cloning mechanism in it for 2 drives that does not have to be connected to a computer.

That crossed my mind as well so I inspected the pins and all were fine. I think that when I inserted the second HDD, I zapped both of them, by having the dock powered on.

I will treat the problem with both HDD's separately as one passes its SMART test & the other does not.

I have finished running the SeaTools read-only and SMART test on HDD #0.
Short Test = Pass
SMART = Fail
Short Generic = Pass
Long Generic = Pass

I close seaTools and click on the HDD and get this message "You need to format the disk in drive G before you can use it".
I cancel and am presented with this message "G:\ is not accessible. The volume does not contain a recognized file system. Please make sure that all required file system drivers are loaded and that the volume is not corrupted".

Member Samurai said, "It's likely they have lost their partition tables you can get free software to recover this you need specific partition recovery."
I believe that is what may have happened.

Before I use a program, most likely either EaseUS or MiniTool, is there anything else I should try?
Can either of those programs destroy date already on the HDD?

If so, I assume there are programs that will access the data to copy it off before I run either of those partition recovery tools. Perhaps a program that runs in DOS?

I have the ability to run commands in an elevated command prompt but need the guidance of what to do.
The other HDD (Western Digital) will take another four hours to complete its equivalent of 'long generic test'.

I will concentrate on fixing one HDD at a time, avoids confusion.

Your help is appreciated :)

I'm not an expert on data recovery, but my understanding is that your best first move is to try to recover the partition tables using something like Minitool.

As a safeguard, you might try to image a drive before attempting anything---just as a fall back position in case you accidentally make a wrong move with a recovery tool. I have no idea if you are able to do this.

Don't attempt file-by-file data recovery until you have given up on any chance of recovering the partition tables. File-by-file recovery of individual files is likely your last resort after everything else has failed and you are out of ideas.