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21888
December 25th, 2016 04:00
Dell External HDD not working
I have a Dell 1 TB Portable HDD which suddenly stopped working the other day.. I got a new laptop and was using the hard disk when i unplugged and plugged it back it suddenly stopped working. I installed Windows 10 on the Laptop. The laptop is a Lenovo IdeaPad 100. When i plugged in the External Drive the LED on it lights up, it shows up in My Computer as "Local Disk F" but when i open disk management it shows "Connecting to Virtual Disk Service" but doesnt go any further and disk management doesnt open. But the drive shows up in Device Management and it says that the device is working properly. I tried using Diskpart and it says the drive is in the UDF file system whereas it was NTFS. I tried using Linux is says there was a mounting error in Linux as well. After that i tried running the "chkdsk" command, and when i pressed enter nothing happened, no response. Nothing happens, after that i tried running "ntfsfix" using ntfs-3g in Linux but it told me to run "chkdsk" on windows but that hadnt worked. Then as a last resort i tried using the "dd" command to perform a low level backup but even that didnt work. Im not very familiar with Linux im just a beginner i tried all these troubleshooting steps after looking up things for hours. Im not sure what the issue is or what mistake i made so im posting this thread. Im a student, all my school related data, family pictures etc are all on that drive, please help me out. I need the drive alive.
David Johnson2
11 Posts
0
January 6th, 2017 02:00
I really appreciate that you perform some troubleshooting by yourself to recover your data.
There may be other possible reasons too due to which your drive is inaccessible. You can try them.
1) Try to connect it with some other working PC.
2) Check the Connector which you are using.
3) Test the port on laptop with which you are connecting.
Sometimes, a hard drive data was not accessible due to bad sectors and other firmware issues. I had faced a similar issue a couple of months back. I had tried harddisk recovery software from the house of Stellar Phoenix on the recommendation of my brother. It helped me to recover all my data without going to any data center. You can try your luck with this.
Good Luck!!!
ejn63
9 Legend
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87.5K Posts
1
January 17th, 2017 03:00
It sounds like the drive has failed - it should have at least a year warranty. Contact Dell to have it replaced.
DELL-Akshatha M
2 Intern
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1.2K Posts
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December 26th, 2016 18:00
Hi NAMAN_NMN,
Thank you for writing to Dell Community Forum.
Did you connect the external Hard drive to another system and check if it was working?
Please click my DELL-username and send me a Private Message with the Dell Service Tag or order number and your email address.
Note: please don't mention the service tag or email id on the public forum as it contains your personal information
Thesandmans
1 Rookie
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2 Posts
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January 16th, 2017 16:00
Hello
Please help me
I have a Dell Inspiron and Dell portable hard drive 1t, purchased together June 16
The HD has been working fine till now and i have all my stuff backed up on to it.
Now suddenly it has stopped working, When plugged in the HD light come on so its powered, but its no longer recognised on my laptop, computer or pvr, on all of which worked fine just a few days ago before this sudden stop.
Have tested on three computers plus PVR, just lights up bit thats it.I am not overly technical.
thanks in advance
Thesandmans
1 Rookie
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2 Posts
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January 17th, 2017 04:00
Thank you so much, figured as such.
Will contact Dell
Jobby Issac
46 Posts
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January 18th, 2017 06:00
Hi,
You tried the basic troubleshooting steps. Now we want to know it's HDD fault or laptop's fault. For checking it, please remove the HDD from your laptop and connect it as external hard disk. If it is working well, you can understand that it's not HDD problem. If it is not working, you need to replace your HDD.
Syed Abbas
2 Posts
0
May 5th, 2021 08:00
Hi did your External HDD problems solve I have a same problem with my external hard drive.please reply me if your problem solve and solution how you solve?