External hard drive trouble

[Sorenhawk]

So the other day I wanted to use my external hard drive for the first time in a few weeks, but when I plugged it in my PC nothing happened. So i tried plugging it in my MBP without getting any response whatsoever.

Being in a bit of a hurry that day I didn't think too much about it and went out the door.

When I got home later that night I tried to plug it in to my PC and it connected alright, but when I tried to store some files on it went "Not responding" on me. Afterwards I tried plugging it in to my MPB again, and got an error sounding something like: "Mac can't read the device you've plugged in" (my OS X is in danish, so I figured it's something like that).

I'm assuming it's a software problem, even though it makes some weird noises from time to time.
But the problem is that I'm having a hard time recovering my data because it isn't always responding as much as i'd like.

Since I don't know too much about hard drives, software and stuff like that, I was wondering whether formatting it will fix my problem, and would I be able to retrieve the data I've lost afterwards? - I was thing something along the lines of a recovery tool, but would it work?

 

[monokakata]

Don't format it!

Other posters will appear with helpful suggestions, but no suggestion will work if you format it.

 

[JamesCotte]

So the other day I wanted to use my external hard drive for the first time in a few weeks, but when I plugged it in my PC nothing happened. So i tried plugging it in my MBP without getting any response whatsoever.

Being in a bit of a hurry that day I didn't think too much about it and went out the door.

When I got home later that night I tried to plug it in to my PC and it connected alright, but when I tried to store some files on it went "Not responding" on me. Afterwards I tried plugging it in to my MPB again, and got an error sounding something like: "Mac can't read the device you've plugged in" (my OS X is in danish, so I figured it's something like that).

I'm assuming it's a software problem, even though it makes some weird noises from time to time.
But the problem is that I'm having a hard time recovering my data because it isn't always responding as much as i'd like.

Since I don't know too much about hard drives, software and stuff like that, I was wondering whether formatting it will fix my problem, and would I be able to retrieve the data I've lost afterwards? - I was thing something along the lines of a recovery tool, but would it work?

I dont think it's software problem, I think it is your hard drive problem. Check the wires or the port on the hard drive.

 

[-tWv-]

Since it's giving you issues in both windows and osx, it's most likely a hardware problem. The drive could be going bad, try to get as much of the data off of it as you can while it still works. You could also try to use a different cable to connect the HD to the computer, the cable could have gone bad too, you never know..

Is it making any sort of clicking noise or anything?

 

[JamesCotte]

Since it's giving you issues in both windows and osx, it's most likely a hardware problem. The drive could be going bad, try to get as much of the data off of it as you can while it still works. You could also try to use a different cable to connect the HD to the computer, the cable could have gone bad too, you never know..

Yea, I agree

 

[Sorenhawk]

So, using another cable didn't help.

I'm beginning to suspect that it might be a hardware failure, 'cause I tried running the stellarphoenix recovery tool, and when it began searching the hdd made a lot of noise, and it didn't sound very healthy at all.

But I wouldn't know the first thing about repairing a hdd like that?