How to repair external hdd.

Question

I have a 3tb external hard drive that attaches by the USB port to my laptop. Before you ask, yes I've tried other ports and chords.

Long story short, something caused the breaker to pop on my surge protector, and I haven't been able to access my data on that drive since.

The laptop is reading it as a mass storage device, but when I double click on it I get an error saying I must fist put a disk in the drive as if its a DVD drive.

I cant figure it out folks, please can someone bless me with their wisdom?

Rev. C. Franklin Allison

Answer 1

Open Command Prompt as Administrator and type the following command:

chkdsk X: /f (replace X with your drive letter) and press Enter

This might help if there's file system corruption.

Make ensure the said drive is visible in Disk Management. If not, right-click on the partition and select Change Drive Letter and Paths.

You might need to use data recovery software to retrieve your files.

Answer 2

Hi Caluph,

Hope you're doing well.

1. Go to "Device Manager", expand "Universal Serial Bus Controller". Look for any "Unknown USB Device" related to your extend drive. Right-click and choose "uninstall", then restart your PC.
2. Ensure that you have full control permission on the disk.
3. Try to use "chkdsk" to repair disk.
4. If noting else works, you can format the drive. But remember to backup your data first.

Best Regards,

Ian Xue

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