data recovery from external drive

I have a western digital external HDD that when I plug it in the computer recognises that a USB device has been plugged in but thats it. The drive does not show up on the PC, either through my computer or drive manager. Also the PC starts running very slowly and some programs do not respond (using XP SP2) while the drive is connected.
I read through the forums and found where TGell said about trying puppy linux so I gave that a go. Now that worked and I was able to access all the files on the drive (WHOOHOO, Im thinking..). Unfortunately I am not able to copy anything from it as all the files seem to be "read only" so it wont let me move them to another drive to recover them. Does anyone have any ideas what I can do to recover these files? As I cant access the drive whilst in windows I cant get rid of the read only status of the files.

 

This could be long shot but does your USB drive have a tiny read/write protect switch?I've not used linux puppy so can't comment,what I have used is linux mint and I've always been able to open ANY files so give it a try.

http://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=67

You should really update to service pack 3 for security and compatibility,your computer is wide open with security vulnerabilities and you will run into compatibility probs and errors like this.

Can you also post the exact read only message when you try to copy the files while in puppy.Have you tried opening two boxes next to each other and just drag and dropping the files in?Instead of right click copying them.?

 

No it doesnt. When Im using linux puppy ,I can open everything..but cant work out how to get rid of the read only to be able to move the files from that drive to another. I was using SP3 for a number of years but was having probs so went back to SP2 and havent had a prob since.Im not online very often so security issues really arent a problem for me.The drive that is causing a problem is about 3 years old.

 

Hello,
I have never run into this with puppy. Can you create a folder on you computer hard drive in puppy? Then open the folder with the window being about half the screen. Then open up your external hard drive with a window being on the other half and try to copy a few files, not a full folder.

If you cannot do this, try mini tools data recovery to retrieve your files. This is free for home use. Make sure you do not save the retrieved files back to your external hard drive.

How to recover data from damaged partition?

 

Ill give it a go in a few minutes. Let you know if it works.
Cheers tgell

 

Ok. I tried that tgell, and it worked just fine apart from the files in the one folder that I really wanted to recover werent there this time. The folder was empty. The first time all the files were there but i wasnt able to copy them. Any ideas why this would be?

 

Something might be corrupted on your drive. You can try again and see if the files will be there and copy. If not try the minitools data recovery software I posted in my other link. That software may find the files you wanted.

 

can you see the drive in disk managment ?
asign it a drive letter there and then
run chkdsk -f [driveletter] from the windows command prompt
this should give you back access to the dive in windows


drive manager <---- sorry didnt see this


program runniable from the command promt called savepart can copy the files from the drive

 

it takes ages for disk management to open but when it does, yes i can see it. It has a letter assigned but when i try to run chkdsk it says "the drive. the path or the file name is not valid". If i try to view it via my computer it just locks the whole system up. I went back into puppy linux 4 times but the folder with the data I need was still empty. I still dont get how that can be if it was there the first time I tried puppy linux.

 

tgell, you're a champion! Minitool did it!! I got the lost files back!! Thank you so very much for all your help. One more question. In disk management the drive has letter E assigned. In minitools it had no letter assigned. I gather this is something to do with its fault. Do you think formatting the drive might solve its problems?

 

Glad you got the data back! If you are positive that you have all the files and they open up okay and are not corrupted, go ahead and format the drive to ntfs.

That should solve your problems. If it is difficult to do in disk management, Puppy can do it with the Gparted application. Just be absolutely sure you are

doing it to your external drive because the drive labels in linux are different. You change the drive in the box on the upper right.

Formatting in Gparted Images are with GParted but not Puppy.

As far as drive letter assignment, I am not sure. Might be do to the fact that Minitools uses a different naming convention or the drive was partially corrupted.

 

I'll go through them all tomorrow just to make sure. There are 978 files I need to check before I do it.
Cheers

 

OK. All Data successfully recovered and drive formatted and 100% working again! Thanks so much guys!!

 

Glad everything worked out for you. Just as a side-note. It is always a good idea to have your backups in two separate locations. One preferably off-site if the data is very important to you.

 

I do now!