I've been trying to recover data from an old laptop and an external hard drive that have both stopped working. The laptop has a Hitachi HTS543216L9SA00 hard drive that I managed to connect using a SATA to USB cable, but my computer says it's corrupted. I also have a Cavalry 1TB external drive that contained two 500GB Western Digital drives, but my computer doesn't recognize those drives at all when plugged in. Are there any other methods I can use to recover my old pictures and videos? Is there anything I could have avoided doing wrong, apart from waiting so long to try recovering these drives?
1 Answer
It sounds like the external drive might have its drives configured in RAID, which could be why they aren't recognized individually. To recover data from it, you'll need to get the enclosure functioning again and make sure you connect the drives back in the original positions. For the internal laptop hard drive, you could try running 'chkdsk' on it, but a better test would be directly connecting it to a desktop PC's SATA port if you have one. If that still doesn't work, consider using data recovery software like EaseUS Data Recovery or Recuva. Just a heads up, those programs won't work on RAID setups, but they might help with your internal drive.
Do you have any tips on how to get the enclosure working again? I tried plugging it in, and it shows power, but only a red light is on with no fan activity.