Laptop won't recognize external hard drive - unallocated drive

Hey,

I've got this 2TB WD My Book Essential.
When I plug it into my laptop, the drive spins up, but there’s no drive letter showing up in My Computer. In Disk Management, it just shows up as unallocated.

When I pull up Disk Management, this happens.

I don't care about the drive itself, but it would be awesome if I could just grab my files off it.

Tried a few random tools online, but nothing works... (EaseUS partition recovery, MiniTool power data recovery, Recuva doesn't even realize the drive is plugged in, and GetDataBack just says "bad disk" and finds zero results)

Acer Aspire V3 Win 10
Win 10
Using the original 3.0 cable in a 3.0 port

Thanks!

Emily Green66 said:Hi there,

I have a 2TB WD My Book Essential hard drive.
When I plug it into my laptop, the drive starts spinning, but it doesn't show up with an assigned letter in My Computer. In Disk Management, it shows up as unallocated.

When I open Disk Management, this happens.

The hardware itself isn't important to me, but it would be great if I could recover the data from it.

I've already tried a few different programs online, but nothing is working (EaseUS partition recovery, MiniTool power data recovery, Recuva doesn't even recognize the drive is plugged into the PC, and GetDataBack reports a bad disk and found absolutely nothing).

Acer Aspire V3 Win 10
Win 10
I am using the original 3.0 cable connected to a 3.0 port.

Thanks!

Try this approach: http://www.networkpcworld.com/recove...ed-disk-error/
Download the software, run it, perform a scan, and then mount the problematic drive. Create a folder and transfer the data from the mounted drive into it. Once you've successfully recovered everything, you can go ahead and Initialize it by selecting MBR. After that, just assign a drive letter and you should be all set. 🙂

Tried all three scanning methods, kept getting this same result 😢

Emily Green66 said:I went through all three scanning methods, but it keeps showing this every single time 😢

Have you tried to Initialize the drive via Disk Management? And obviously, make sure you assign it a drive letter.

So, if I open Disk Management to run that Initialize thing they suggested... should I go with MBR or GPT?
Won't that just wipe the whole drive?

I haven't tried it yet because I had no clue what it actually does. Honestly, I was terrified it would format everything and then I'd be stuck with zero way to get my files back...

Emily Green66 said:So, if I open Disk Management to run that Initialize process you suggested, should I go with MBR or GPT?
Won't that just wipe the whole drive?

I haven't tried it yet because I wasn't sure what it actually does. I was worried that once I hit that button, the drive would be formatted and then I'd be stuck without any way to get my files back.

Yeah, doing it that way will effectively format the drive. Your best bet is to try recovering the data first using different software—stuff like EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard or MiniTool Partition Recovery. The real question is whether those tools will even recognize the drive at all. Alternatively, you could try using a partition tool like Partition Wizard to see if you can just manually assign a drive letter.

Tried all that crap, nothing works 😢
The drive itself is fine, I just want the files back on it 😢

If you’re so obsessed with these numbers that you’re willing to drop a few hundred bucks on them, why don't you just head over to a local shop and get a diagnostic scan? It’s free, and they can actually tell you what it'll cost to fix your mess:

https://www.autozone.com/diy/diagnostics