The files are still recoverable after dropping the drive?

[Betty7940]

I have problem with my WD external hard drive:

I had accidentally dropped it to the ground when it was transferring some data from my PC. Now, I am not able to access the data inside it. Every time I try to plunge it back to my PC, a message would pop out and say: “Drive is not formatted. Do you want t format it now?”

What’s the hell with it? Could you help me fix this? Many work documents are still saved there.

Help me!

[Boris]

If you have dropped it, then it is quite likely that the shock has physically damaged the internal mechanism in some way.

You could try installing the free Recuva http://www.piriform.com/recuva and scanning the external drive with that to see what it finds as recoverable.

[Alan2273]

When you load the drive does a drive letter show up in my computer, if it does you can use a live linux CD to access and transfer the files to another drive.

[Betty7940]

OK! The dropped drive often could be corrupted in two ways, logically and physically.

The physically corrupted drive is often irreparable and the inner contained data is also irrecoverable.

However, ironically, the logically corrupted drive often could be repaired by reformatting and the inner saved data also could be restored with the help of drive data recovery software.

However, according to your description, your drive may be only logically corrupted anyway.

So, plunge this drive back to your computer and download an external hard drive data recovery freeware to take a chance: Recuva, PhotoRec and iCare Data Recovery Free, etc.

Note: Do not forget to format this drive after the data recovery process.

In the future, never drop or shock a hard drive or memory card.

Thank you for your nice help!

I have read your answer carefully and learned a lot! I have also tried your recommended data recovery freeware over the internet. They are all great, especially the last one that has eventually retrieved all my wanted files back!

Thank you very, very much!