External hard drives have become increasingly popular due to their speed, cost, and convenience. However, just like regular hard drives, they're subject to the same data loss risks, be it mechanical or software induced.

Thankfully, the data can usually be recovered if you're proactive. Read on to find out the various methods of external hard drive data recovery.

Types of External Hard Drive Failures

Before moving on to the various methods of external hard drive repair, it's important to know the reason why your external HDD failed. This will help determine the best course of action to take in order to recover lost data.

An hard disk drive.

Mechanical Failure

Since external hard drives consist of quite a few moving parts, they do experience some wear and tear. Older hard drives are particularly fragile. The most common parts to get damaged include the spindle, read/write heads, and actuator arms.

The telltale sign of mechanical or physical hard drive failure is a grinding and clicking noise from the hard drive. Additionally, the files stored on your drive may become corrupt or invisible, and the hard drive could give out a constant beeping noise. A beeping noise usually signifies a problem with the read/write head of the hard drive.

There isn't a lot you can do to prevent mechanical hard drive failure due to normal wear and tear. However, it's always a good idea to handle your hard drive carefully, as well as having a secondary backup location.

Software Failure

In addition to physical failures, your external hard drive could experience a software issue. This could be a firmware failure, in which case the external hard drive will have problems communicating with the computer. Your computer may not detect the drive altogether.

Malware infections may also result in a software failure. In fact, a lot of malware is designed to lock your data unless you pay the hackers, i.e. ransomware. Even worse, a virus could completely wipe out the data from your external HDD. Files and folders may also refuse to open, or randomly disappear and then reappear when you connect the external hard disk drive again.

Related: Steps to Take When You Discover Malware on Your Computer

Software failures are mostly preventable. Some good habits to follow include investing in a good antivirus package, and to avoid suddenly disconnecting the hard drive when copying or moving files. Before physically disconnecting the drive, it's always a good idea to eject the hard drive using the option on the system tray,

Ways to Recover Data From an External Hard Drive

In most cases, the data from your external hard drive can be recovered. Additionally, it's likely that the drive is just facing a temporary malfunction or a logical error that can be fixed by reinstalling the drivers and running utilities such as CHKDSK.

As such, this should be your first course of action if the hard drive hasn't been physically damaged.

Run the CHKDSK Utility

The CHKDSK utility is Windows' in-built disk-checking utility that scans and repairs your hard drive, even if it's an external HDD. It can be run using the Command Prompt (CMD).

CHKDSK command in the Command Prompt console.
  1. In the Start menu search bar, type cmd. From the search results, right-click on Command Prompt > Run as administrator.
  2. In the CMD console, type chkdsk X: /f where X is the letter attributed to your external HDD. This can be seen by navigating to File Explorer > This PC. Press Enter.
  3. Wait for the CHKDSK scan to complete. It may take a while depending on the size of the external hard drive.
  4. After the scan is complete, close CMD, then reboot your computer to check whether the drive is functional again.

Reinstall the Driver

All components on your computer communicate with the OS using drivers. So, if the driver for your external HDD wasn't installed properly, it could potentially result in a fault. Fortunately, you can easily reinstall the driver using the Device Manager utility in Windows.

Uninstalling a driver using Device Manager.
  1. Press Windows Key + R to launch the Run application. In the text box, type devmgmt.msc and hit Enter to open Device Manager.
  2. Expand the Disk drives section and look for the external HDD. If you can't locate it, then look for it under the Portable devices section.
  3. Upon locating the external HDD, right-click on it and choose Uninstall device.
  4. After the driver is uninstalled, close Device Manager and reboot your computer. Windows will automatically reinstall the driver.

Related: How to Find & Replace Outdated Windows Drivers

If the aforementioned methods didn't work, it indicates a more serious issue with the external hard disk drive. In this case, it's better to use a third-party software tool to scan and recover the files, or use a third-party hard disk drive data recovery service.

Recover Data Using Third-Party Software

There are plenty of third-party data recovery applications that can help you retrieve lost data. However, most of them are paid services.

Fortunately, these applications are quite simple to use, and even novice users can use them to recover their data. For this article, we'll use Wondershare Recoverit since it also offers 100 MB of free data recovery. But the steps used should be almost the same for all other recovery programs out there.

Wondershare Rcoverit home screen.
  1. Download Wondershare Recoverit, or any other recovery software of your choice.
  2. Run the installer you just downloaded. You will most likely need administrative privileges to do so.
  3. After installation, launch the application and select the external hard drive from the home screen. Then click on Start.
  4. Wait for the software to finish scanning the hard drive.
  5. Preview the recovered files, then select the files you want to recover and click on Recover.

Use a Data Recovery Service

If you had some really important data saved on your external HDD, and none of the other methods are working, it may be worthwhile to contact a data recovery service. These companies specialize in recovering data, and can usually recover your data even in the most dire situations.

The steps involved in using a data recovery service include:

  1. Contact the service, and state your exact problem to them.
  2. Most services will then perform a no-cost assessment of your hard drive. This means that you will have to courier the external HDD to the company or drop it off at a service center.
  3. After the initial evaluation, the company will present you with the exact cost.
  4. You can then choose whether to proceed further.

Data Recovered

Sudden data loss from your external hard drive is always scary. However, most, if not all, of this data can be recovered using the methods listed above.

Additionally, these methods are just not limited to external hard drives: there are even more factors that can damage the internal HDD of your computer. Thus, it's always better to be aware of them, and potential solutions if the drive does get damaged.