External hard drives are common storage devices used to store photos, documents, videos, music, and more, facilitating file transfer between computers or serving as a backup medium. Occasionally, you may lose these files for some reason. However, most people do not know how to recover data from an external hard disk efficiently. Consequently, this is a severe issue that requires an urgent solution. Here, we are going to introduce many methods for retrieving your lost files, including recovery tools or services for tough situations and native OS built-in features for simpler scenarios.
When some files on your external disk are lost, whether due to deletion, formatting, or other causes, the operating system removes their "index" entries (records including information such as file location, type, and size) from the file system and marks the data blocks occupied by the actual file content as "free". Simply put, the files themselves are still being saved on your external drive. They merely cannot be recognized by the file system because the necessary reference information is missing. That is the underlying principle that allows us to recover them with professional tools.
However, depending on the storage medium, most external hard drives today use flash memory chips, commonly known as SSDs (Solid State Drives). Compared with a traditional mechanical disk, the addition of TRIM in SSDs has greatly improves read and write speeds. This also brings a drawback, as the operating system can use it to notify the external hard drive which data blocks (where file contents are stored) are useless and can be cleared proactively. Therefore, if you find some files are missing on your external hard drives, please immediately disconnect it from the computer and try the following recovery methods to avoid the data from being cleaned up and permanently lost.
As mentioned above, although you may lose some files on the external disk for one of the reasons listed below, this is only temporary. To get them back more quickly, please select the appropriate solution based on your specific situation.
| Reasons for Data Loss | Available Solutions |
|---|---|
Accidental DeletionMistakenly pressing the "Delete" key, accidentally deleting useful files while organizing data, deleting a specific partition, or repartitioning while managing the external hard drive. |
Utilize backup, otherwise use professional software to recover deleted files from the external hard drive. |
FormattingFormatting the entire external hard drive/a specific partition without transferring important files to other hard drives first, or accidentally clicking the "Cancel" button during the formatting process. |
Use software or services to perform external hard disk data recovery. |
Disk Logical CorruptedYour external hard drive can be recognized by computers, but it doesn’t appear in File Explorer, or there is an error message when you attempt to open it. |
Use the "Disk Management" or "Error checking" to repair this error, or use a program to recover files first, after that format the external hard drive to reset its file system. |
Files Disappeared UnexpectedlyThe files or folder disappeared from your external hard drive without any sign, and you had never deleted, cut, or copied them. |
Check "Hidden items" in File Explorer or use data recovery software to scan for the missing files. |
External Disk Physical DamageDue to drops, wear and tear, or hardware failure, the external hard drive is no longer recognized by computers. It does not even appear in Disk Management. |
Contact a local data recovery service provider to recover your data. |
Other CausesFiles were not saved, became corrupted, or even lost due to interruptions during data transfer, program crashes, power outages, virus infections, or similar issues. |
Check whether a backup file is available. If not, try software for external hard drive recovery. |
Sometimes, built-in tools in the computer operating system can help you recover lost data or repair a damaged file system on an external disk, allowing you to access the data stored on it. Therefore, before considering third-party software, you may want to try these methods first.
Incorrect settings or installation of malicious software are also one of the reasons for files or folders loss on your external hard drive. In fact, they are still there, but their attributes have been tampered with, making them invisible. To resolve this problem, you just need to open the directory where these items are located in File Explorer, and then select "View" > "Show" from the top menu to check if the "Hide Items" option is selected. Additionally, here are ways to reveal hidden files.
File history is a backup tool for Windows. Many users use it to protect their important data. When you lose some files due to accidental deletion or formatting, it should be the first option you try.
If you encounter a message while attempting to open an external hard drive, such as "The file/directory is corrupted and unreadable," "Location is not available," or "The disk is not formatted, would you like to format it now?", etc., it indicates that the file system has become corrupted. Although it looks like a dire situation, the solution is actually quite simple, as outlined below:
Tip: If you are still unable to fix the file system errors, you can also run Command Prompt as an administrator and type "chkdsk [Drive Letter of External Hard Drive]: /f /r" to perform a comprehensive scan.
Have you ever connected an external hard drive to a new computer for file transfer, received a "New Hardware Found" notification, but it did not appear in the File Explorer? It typically occurs when its drive letter conflicts with another storage device. You can resolve the problem by assigning a new drive letter to this external hard drive as follows:
Professional software is essential for recovering data from the external disk after excluding issues such as missing files without a backup, tampered attributes, and file system corruption. Here, we recommend an excellent tool: iBeesoft Data Recovery to you, as it combines an intuitive user interface and powerful features, including:
With iBeesoft Data Recovery, recovering deleted or lost files from an external hard drive becomes very simple. Here are the steps:
Use a USB cable to connect the external disk to a computer and ensure that it is recognized. If there is, you can also use a power supply to provide a stable voltage for it during scanning.
Click the "Download" button above to get its exe installation file. Once the download is complete, find the "iBeesoft-Data-Recovery" file in your "Downloads" folder and double-click it to run the installer. When the installation interface appears, select your preferred language, then follow the on-screen instructions. However, when selecting the installation location, please do not choose the external hard drive where lost files.
Once iBeesoft Data Recovery has been installed, you can launch it. By default, it scans for all file types. If you only need to recover specific types of data, such as "Photos" from your external disk, please click "Go to Settings" at the bottom of the page to deselect the other file types.
In the main window of iBeesoft Data Recovery, you will see all disks connected to the computer. Please hover your mouse over the external disk you wish to scan and click the orange "Scan" button that appears.
As iBeesoft Data Recovery scans your external hard drive, it will display the items it finds in real time. You can click on the folders in the sidebar to view the recoverable files and preview their contents. After finding all the lost data, you can also pause the scan to restore them immediately.
Click the checkboxes next to the files to select the ones you wish to save, then click the "Recover" button in the bottom-right corner of the window. iBeesoft Data Recovery will prompt you to choose a location to save them. Simply choose a storage device that is different from the external hard drive you are scanning.
How to recover data from an external hard drive on a Mac.
When your external hard drive suffers from severe physical damage, all of the methods mentioned above, aside from using File History or checking other locations for copies, will prove useless. In this case, a professional data recovery service may be able to help you retrieve files that have been lost. These services typically disassemble the external disk within a cleanroom environment to perform repairs or sector-level cloning, thereby extracting the data. If your external hard drive exhibits the following symptoms and the files stored on it are critical, you may wish to consider applying to a service provider such as DriveSavers.
No. In Windows PC, the function of "Ctrl"+"Z" is limited to the local disk partition and does not perform further operations, such as copying and pasting after deleting it. Therefore, if you happen to lose a file in this manner, do not worry. You can still recover it by using tools such as iBeesoft Data Recovery, TestDisk, or RecoverIt.
It's not possible. While the primary functions of CMD are for troubleshooting, task automation, and system administration, it can indeed assist in recovering deleted files from the Recycle Bin. However, it is important to note that files deleted from an external hard drive are not put in the Recycle Bin. In such cases, if you need to recover data from an external drive, file recovery software and professional services are the right options. With the former, you must manually perform the entire recovery process yourself, whereas with the latter, a professional engineer will assist you in completing the task.
It's very simple! As mentioned in this article, whether you lost files due to accidental deletion or formatting, the actual data blocks containing their content have not been erased. Instead, they are merely marked as "free" and available for storing new data. Therefore, to prevent these files from being overwritten, you simply need to stop using the external hard drive and refrain from saving the recovered files back onto it.
Actually not. If you continue to save new files on the external hard drive, even if recovery software successfully finds the deleted items, they may still be unopenable. Therefore, to successfully recover deleted files from an external disk, you should immediately stop using it and try a data recovery software to recover lost files as soon as possible.
Of course, you can! There are many free data recovery software options available to us, among which iBeesoft Free Data Recovery, Recuva, and the Windows File Recovery Tool are worth trying.
Sure, but only if you know the password. Otherwise, no tool will be able to decrypt the data stored on it.
First, you should try online tools, such as OfficeRecovery. When they don't work, we recommend using SecureData's file repair tool. Additionally, you can also use other recovery programs, some of which may be able to restore the correct version of the file.
In summary, please take good care of your external hard drive in daily use. For the unfortunate file loss, you can download iBeesoft Data Recovery to recover them. We believe you will achieve unexpected and satisfying results.
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