External HDD problem

[Andrez]

I tried to open my external HDD but it's like unknown to my system, and it says to format it, otherwise it won't be able to open. I tried some tools like Recuva and some others, but it's just like it does not exist. It used to work fine until now, either in mine and my sister's laptops, but now it does not work neither in mine, nor in hers. I don't want to format it, I have many many many important files (it's 1 TB) so are there ways to keep and save data?

[Apollo{TyD}]

Which OS?

[jamz]

I've had this happen once where it was a problem with the SATA to USB controller card. I took the drive box apart and connected the actual HDD to the computer as an internal drive and could access it as normal. Of course, I had to buy a new external drive.

[Andrez]

Which OS?

Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit

I've had this happen once where it was a problem with the SATA to USB controller card. I took the drive box apart and connected the actual HDD to the computer as an internal drive and could access it as normal. Of course, I had to buy a new external drive.

Is it possible doing the same with a laptop?

[OpenSource]

If you cant get your system to recognize you HDD you can always try with a Live CD like Ubuntu or SystemRescueCd to recover/rescue your files before you format it.
This can be run via you CD/DVD Rom and will not affect your other HDD's in any way.
That is if you dont choose to install but use the Live part.

http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page

Description: SystemRescueCd is a Linux system rescue disk available as a bootable CD-ROM or USB stick for administrating or repairing your system and data after a crash. It aims to provide an easy way to carry out admin tasks on your computer, such as creating and editing the hard disk partitions. It comes with a lot of linux software such as system tools (parted, partimage, fstools, ...) and basic tools (editors, midnight commander, network tools). It requires no installation. It can be used on linux servers, linux desktops or windows boxes. The kernel supports the important file systems (ext2/ext3/ext4, reiserfs, reiser4, btrfs, xfs, jfs, vfat, ntfs, iso9660), as well as network filesystems (samba and nfs).

http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/download

You can try out Ubuntu before you install it. When your CD or USB stick is ready, you can run Ubuntu directly from your CD or USB without affecting your current system.

[jamz]

...Is it possible doing the same with a laptop?

Ah, no. You'd need a new box, something like this.