An Easy Guide to External Hard Drive Data Recovery

External hard drives are used by many people due to its portability and its storage capacity. Sometimes, the user may encounter data loss on their external hard drive. This leads to the loss of important data. So, let us see the procedures to recover the data of the external hard drive.

Reasons for the external hard drive data loss

Data cannot be guaranteed fully on any storage drives. There are various problems that can occur that can lead to the loss of data. By knowing these reasons, you will be able to protect your hard drive data in the future. 

• Virus or malware attack.
• Accidental formatting or deletion.
• Corruption of the file system.
• Unexpected application error or system shutdown.
• The partitions are lost or damaged.
• Damage caused due to sudden power surge or failure.

Anyone of these reasons is enough to damage your data. 

Procedures to restore data

There are two methods that are most commonly used to restore the data on an external hard drive. One of the ways is to use a data recovery software for WIndows. There is much effective software available that you can use for this purpose. 

However, there is also a method for those who do not want to use software for recovering the data. This method is to use CMD. 

Procedure 1: Use a data recovery software to restore the data

So, let us see how you can use a data recovery software to restore your lost data from your external hard drive:-

• First, select the data recovery software and install it on your computer. 
• Then, open the interface of the software. Enter the tab of “External Devices”. From here, select your hard drive that has data loss and click on the option of “Scan”. 
• The software will start the scanning process immediately. As the scan proceeds, you will be able to see your lost data showing up in the list of results. 
• When the scan is complete, check the list of data and check the ones that you want to restore. Then, click on the “Recover” option. After that, you have to choose a location to save the data that will be recovered. 

This is a very effective way to get back your lost data. The use of software makes the recovery process easier.

Procedure 2: Using recovery software to recover data from a corrupted drive
If an external hard drive gets corrupted, then the operating system of your computer will not be able to access it. This will make the accessing of data impossible. A corrupted drive can be caused due to a missing or damaged file system. So, you will need to use data recovery software to retrieve these files. 

• Choose recovery software. There are a large number of good software on the internet. Download the software and install it on your computer. Then, open the interface of the software and check if the saved files on the hard drive are visible within the software. 

In some situations, the files from the RAW drive can show up within the software. However, if they are not visible, then move to the next step.
Click on the external drive and select the option of “Tools”. After that, go to the option of “Load Current Partition Intelligently”. This feature is created to recover data from the RAW NTFS or inaccessible partition. However, if the drive is badly damaged or is not NTFS, then you have to go to the next solution. 
Select your external drive that is corrupted and select the option of “File Recovery”. This will be located in the toolbar. 
After that. Select the recovery mode and then press the “Start” button. This will start the process of searching the lost data. After the process is complete, you will be able to see all your lost data on a list. From here, you can select which of them you want to recover.

You have now recovered your lost data successfully. However, if you are not very well versed with computers, you can take the help of professionals from any one of the hard drive data recovery services present in Dubai. 

Procedure 3. Using CMD to recover the data

You can use CMD to restore data from external hard drives just like as you can restore data from a formatted USB. 

• Press the keys of Window and R, or go to the search and write “cmd” and press enter. This will open the window of Command Prompt. 
• Then, within the command prompt, you have to type “chkdsk F: /f” and press Enter. The letter “F” is the drive of the hard drive. You have to put the drive number for your external hard drive on your computer. 
• After that write “Y” and press Enter.
• Next, you have to type “F” and gain hit the Enter key. 
• Then, write “F:\>attrib -h -r -s /s /d *.*” and press the Enter key. 

Now, you will be able to see all the data on your hard drive. Then you can check which of the data you want to restore. 

How can you avoid your external hard drive data loss

You have now recovered your external hard drive data successfully. Even though the procedure for recovering the data is not very hard, it always better to avoid such situations. So, to prevent yourself from such data loss happening in the future, you must follow the given steps carefully:- 

• Make sure that your computer is dust free and clean.
• If you see that your computer is getting hot, you must clean it thoroughly by taking out its components individually.
• Always make backups of your data. Make sure to save them in locations places so that if one location gets compromised, you can use the other location to access your backup. 
• You must make an image backup before you see any indication of hard drive corruption.
• Always keep your anti-virus software updated. 
• Avoid any suspicious attachments or emails. 

I hope that you understood the procedures to recover the data on your external hard drive. Also, make sure that you follow the precautions to avoid any data loss at all. However, if you are a casual user and do not know much about computers, do not worry. You can take the help of the professionals from the various hard drive data recovery services in Dubai.