Non-Accessible External HDD

[ulrich.von.lich]

I can no longer access my WD MyBook HDD. When I click the icon in Windows, it says:

"E:\ is not accessible
The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable"

I failed to access it on both a T43 and a T60p with Vista and XP. I was also prompted to format it before using. I have used this hard drive for months and never experienced anything like this. I tested it with PC Doctor and it passed the Funnel Seek Test and Random Seek Test. I was also able to defragment it in Windows. But I don't understand why I'm prevented from accessing it suddenly.

I don't know what to do now. I'm very upset because I have quite a lot of personal data which hasn't been backupped on this drive. Is there some way to recover the data? (I saw people in CTU were able to recover data from physically damaged HDDs.)

Any thought would be very much appreciated!!! And sorry it's not very ThinkPad related.

Note from Moderator: That's ok - I just moved it to a more appropriate conference! Good luck!

[Kyocera]

Is this a drive that has an OS on it, or just for storage, and what is it in when you are accessing it a USB enclosure, etc.?

[ulrich.von.lich]

Thanks for the reply!! I have fixed the problem by using chkdsk.exe. I don't know much about the structure of the hard drive but it seemed to have lots of errors. I only use it for storage and it's in a sort of USB enclosure with its own power supply. I did a research on google and think the problem may be caused by the fact that I always unplug it directly without ejecting it properly.

[Thinkpaddict]

Thanks for the reply!! I have fixed the problem by using chkdsk.exe. I don't know much about the structure of the hard drive but it seemed to have lots of errors. I only use it for storage and it's in a sort of USB enclosure with its own power supply. I did a research on google and think the problem may be caused by the fact that I always unplug it directly without ejecting it properly.

Yes, that is definitely something you should never do. You don't want to unplug a drive without ejecting, because there might be data being written to it (or waiting to be written to it.)