Hi all, hoping a guru can help me out? So I have a windows 10 PC that I haven't used for a while and I have an external Hard drive (mains powered) that holds a lot of old music files (used to hold my music mixes from Cubase). I guess I haven't used the PC and hard drive in about a year and thought I would dust it off and start mixing again, when I powered up the HD it doesn't show in the file explorer box. So I looked on the net and checked a few things out in disk management.

So in Disk management it says 'Disk 2 Unknown - Not initialized'

I guess my question is, can I recover the data on the disk without having to reformat it? I really need to keep the data on the disk as it's sort of my life's work.

Seems weird as well as it was fine the last time I used it and now it won't recognize it?

It seems like all the software I download still doesn't recognize the external HD anyway for recovery?

Can you post drive model?
When you connect the drive, do you hear some strange noises?
Did you try it on another PC/Laptop?

Hi, thanks for reply, I've taken the HD out of the metal Chassis and it says 'Samsung HD300LJ'

No weird noises, the fan in the chassis starts up a little noisy at first but it's always done that.

I've tried in my laptop as well and still the same issue. I've also tried different USB ports etc?

Try to connect the drive via SATA interface to your PC.
And check if it's detected in post screen.
And post results.

I also recommend connecting to a SATA on a PC.

you could download DMDE (free) and if it is showing there, do a full disk image to a file. Then you have at least save the data, and if you are fortunate, you can use DR software on the image without a chance of further damaging the original.


You would still be able to open the disk image in something like Partition Find and Mount, and access partitions if they are not too messed up.