I need some external hard drive help

[GerryDavid]

My plans for today were to back up my main external 2tb hard drive to my 3rd external 2tb hard drive, but I guess I am one day to late. The main 2tb was working last night.

My western digital 2tb external drive only shows the drive letter when I plug it in, and says the drive needs to be formatted. the drive has been great and hasnt been acting weird.

Is there anything I can do to access the files briefly to copy them over to another drive?

here is a bit of background in case it matters.

I have three 2tb drives that I have mostly the same files on, as a backup. The first/main 2tb is the one I use the most and work on the files with, so it has all the psd files from photoshop. I have some of these backed up but not as many as I wish I had. I do have all the original jpgs and raw files on the other two drives so that part is not bad.

Last night I erased 40gb on the first/main 2tb to make room to copy some pictures over *50gb* from my second 2tb external drive and it wouldnt let me copy some files at the end for some reason, it said the second drive could not be read during the transfer, but when I double clicked on the file on the second 2tb it opened up in the raw editor no problem. So it was just a copy problem.

then today when I plugged in my first/main 2tb into my new laptop into the usb3 port *the drive is only usb2* it took a while to install the drivers and then said the drive needs to be formatted before its used. I unplugged it and put it in my old laptop and it said the same thing. My other drives are working fine and can be read in either computer. I dont think plugging it into the usb3 port would have anything to do with this but then again maybe it does.

Any advice?

 

[Gaerek]

So let me get this strait, on the main external drive, when it's plugged in, it only shows the drive letter. I assume this means that you can't actually access the drive and it's contents? If that's the case, don't format (obviously). Go find some recovery software (it might take a while on that large of a drive, but it'll be worth it to keep your stuff) and run the software. Then copy whatever is recovered to the new drive. That drive still might be good, there just might be something corrupted. Just format when you're done and test it out. There are many file recovery options available, for many different prices. I'll let you search and find what you think will work best for you. They all, however, basically work the same way.

 

[GFP]

you got it. it shows a drive letter when no explore option, when I try to "open" it asks to format. hopefully there is a good and free recovery tool.

I dont have time to search right now and thankfully the stuff I need in the next week is on the backup drive. then I got a fundraiser coming up in a week to raise money for the hungry. luckily I got in on bestbuys 3tb deals so that 2tb thats not working is needed right away.

 

[cgipson1]

I am assuming you had it formatted in NTFS? If so, make sure any recovery software you get will handle that. I use this professionally (Systems Engineer with just an occasional need for this), and it works well. NTFS.com File System Structure, Recovery Software, Hard Disk Internals.. Very inexpensive also..

 

[KmH]

My plans for today were to back up my main external 2tb hard drive to my 3rd external 2tb hard drive, but I guess I am one day to late. The main 2tb was working last night.

My western digital 2tb external drive only shows the drive letter when I plug it in, and says the drive needs to be formatted. the drive has been great and hasnt been acting weird.

Is there anything I can do to access the files briefly to copy them over to another drive?

here is a bit of background in case it matters.

I have three 2tb drives that I have mostly the same files on, as a backup. The first/main 2tb is the one I use the most and work on the files with, so it has all the psd files from photoshop. I have some of these backed up but not as many as I wish I had. I do have all the original jpgs and raw files on the other two drives so that part is not bad.

Last night I erased 40gb on the first/main 2tb to make room to copy some pictures over *50gb* from my second 2tb external drive and it wouldnt let me copy some files at the end for some reason, it said the second drive could not be read during the transfer, but when I double clicked on the file on the second 2tb it opened up in the raw editor no problem. So it was just a copy problem.

then today when I plugged in my first/main 2tb into my new laptop into the usb3 port *the drive is only usb2* it took a while to install the drivers and then said the drive needs to be formatted before its used. I unplugged it and put it in my old laptop and it said the same thing. My other drives are working fine and can be read in either computer. I dont think plugging it into the usb3 port would have anything to do with this but then again maybe it does.

Any advice?

you got it. it shows a drive letter when no explore option, when I try to "open" it asks to format. hopefully there is a good and free recovery tool.

I dont have time to search right now and thankfully the stuff I need in the next week is on the backup drive. then I got a fundraiser coming up in a week to raise money for the hungry. luckily I got in on bestbuys 3tb deals so that 2tb thats not working is needed right away.

Do you have multiple screen names here on TPF?

 

[GerryDavid]

Do you have multiple screen names here on TPF?

I do, but as you can tell by the post count, the one doesnt get used very often, mostly when I go on my wifes computer which refuses to remember my gerrydavid log in info and I forget to switch out. I read a thread a while back that suggests linking your website to your forum account, so it helps with the google results since thast one more link to the website. But I also dont want my fans to know that I dont know everything there is to know about photography *no one does really, were always learning* which is why I mostly use my main one.