External Hard Drive Error


  1. Posts : 4
    Windows 10
       #1

    External Hard Drive Error


    My external hard drive is showing an error.

    G:\ is not accessible.

    The disk structure is corrupted and unreadable.

    Does anyone know how to fix it without formatting it? Have a lot of file on there that I'd like to recover if possible.

    Any advice would be greatly appreciated
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 134,237
    Windows 11 Pro (x64) 23H2 Build 22631.3296
       #2

    When that happened to me last year, I downloaded Linux Mint installed it to a USB stick, booted to it, and it could read my external hard drive, and I moved the files to another drive, THEN had to reformat the drive.
      My Computers


  3. Posts : 4
    Windows 10
    Thread Starter
       #3

    OldMike65 said:
    When that happened to me last year, I downloaded Linux Mint installed it to a USB stick, booted to it, and it could read my external hard drive, and I moved the files to another drive, THEN had to reformat the drive.
    I've downloaded Linux Mint but not sure how to now install it on a USB stick and then boot up my machine with it.

    Never used anything but Windows
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 4
    Windows 10
    Thread Starter
       #4

    Have tried it on a colleagues computer running Linux, but he isn't getting much joy. Any other advice?
      My Computer


  5. Posts : 134,237
    Windows 11 Pro (x64) 23H2 Build 22631.3296
       #5

    So you can't install Linux on a USB stick?? and your buddy who runs Linux can't either??? Please explain more to me. I know of no other way to TRY and access your external drive, other than using a bootable usb with either Linux or Ubuntu installed on it. And even if you made either one, you still might not be able to access that external drive if it's fried. This was just a shot at trying, nothing more. Normally I would try running chkdsk on the external drive, but if you can't access the drive, then you can't run it to check or repair errors on that drive.
      My Computers


  6. Posts : 4
    Windows 10
    Thread Starter
       #6

    OldMike65 said:
    So you can't install Linux on a USB stick?? and your buddy who runs Linux can't either??? Please explain more to me. I know of no other way to TRY and access your external drive, other than using a bootable usb with either Linux or Ubuntu installed on it. And even if you made either one, you still might not be able to access that external drive if it's fried. This was just a shot at trying, nothing more. Normally I would try running chkdsk on the external drive, but if you can't access the drive, then you can't run it to check or repair errors on that drive.
    My colleague has linux and ubuntu already installed on his machine, but can't seem to get access to it. The drive seems to be running, just can't read it
      My Computer


  7. Posts : 134,237
    Windows 11 Pro (x64) 23H2 Build 22631.3296
       #7

    neilsinc said:
    My colleague has linux and ubuntu already installed on his machine, but can't seem to get access to it. The drive seems to be running, just can't read it
    Then sorry, I have no more ideas, that hard drive just might be dead.....sorry.
      My Computers


 

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