can I reformat external drive without losing data?

Question

Hi, I am trying to salvage data from a dead laptop by taking the HD and, from an external enclusure, using it as an external HD. However, the new machine cannot read the disk and keeps prompting me to reformat it. Can I reformat it without losing the data? Thanks-

dgkpcon · Answer

No if you reformat,you will lose the data.

When you hooked it up to the usb port,did the laptop install a driver for it?....Windows should have detected the external drive and installed a windows driver.

poiyay · Answer

Yeah, windows installed a driver but is still prompting me to reformat

poiyay · Answer

The external drive that is connected via USB is the old hard drive from a d600 laptop. I am trying to get data off this drive and onto an entirely new computer.

ejn63 · Answer

Since Windows can't read the drive, you're going to need to either buy some software to try recovering yourself, or ship the drive off for data recovery.

Ontrack (http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com/file-recovery-software/) has a tryout version you can use to see what can be recovered. If it works, it costs about $280 to buy.

A data recovery service (Ontrack does this as well, as do the excellent Drive Savers) will cost more on the order of $2,000+.

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poiyay · Answer

The drive should be fine, it is from a laptop that died with motherboard issues. I can see the drive when I go to to the my computer screen, but double clicking brings up the error mentioned above, where it says that the drive is not formatted. Thoughts?

dgkpcon · Answer

Got it now,

Did you recieve any error messages from this drive,was it a failing drive,or did it completly fail?...

Try clicking on "My computer" and double click on the drive(if it is visible).If it does open you will be able to access the data to download.

dgkpcon · Answer

Do you have a new hard drive installed?..And this one is hooked up by USB trying to get data from it correct?..

poiyay · Answer

The exact message is 'The disk in drive E is not formatted. Do you want to format it now?'

apkobl · Answer

It is good that windows actually recognizes the drive. Sometimes there are slight differences between computers. I would try to hook the drive up to another computer and see if you get the same results.

I would also give it a try and use windows explorer to look for the drive, than just click the plus in front of the drive letter and see if anything on the drive is visible.

Storage, Drives & Media

can I reformat external drive without losing data?

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