An external hard disk with its cover removed

External Hard DiskYears Of Backups On One Thin Cable.

NTFSexFAT

The USB disk with every photo since college, the office's old accounts and that one folder nobody else has. External disks are dropped, unplugged mid-copy and powered by thin cables. When one stops opening, the files are usually still on it. The trick is to not make it worse.

External disks are usually NTFS or exFAT. DRE Pro reads NTFS, exFAT and FAT.

Scan It FreeRead The Guides
Run Deep Scan First

Reads every sector from the first to the last. Works after a format. Can be paused.

Most problems on this kind of drive damage the index, so a Deep Scan that does not need the index is the one that finds the files.

The Usual Suspects

01

Asks To Be Formatted

The file system was damaged, often by unplugging while it was writing. Files usually fine.

02

Opens But Empty

The index is broken or a partition was lost. The data area is still there.

03

Drops Out

A tired cable or weak USB port makes the disk disconnect and come back.

04

Clicks Or Beeps

Mechanical trouble. Stop using it and get it to a lab.

The Tools That Help Here

Waits For A Dropped Drive

If the disk disconnects mid-scan, DRE Pro waits for it and carries on.

Deep Scan, Pause, Resume

A big disk takes time. Stop tonight, finish tomorrow from Saved Scans.

Health Before You Scan

Check the health percentage first so a weak disk is not pushed too hard.

Image Then Recover

Copy a failing disk to an image and scan the image.

Worth Knowing Before It Happens

  • Always use Safely Remove before pulling the cable.
  • Use the cable the disk came with and a port at the back of a desktop.
  • Save recovered files to a different disk, never back onto this one.
  • Two external disks with the same files is a backup. One is just a disk.

What Happened To Yours?

Every Situation

External Disk Not Opening

Not opening, or opening with nothing inside

Formatted The Drive

A quick format on the wrong disk

Partition Lost

A drive letter gone from This PC

Photos And Videos Missing

A whole trip or a whole shoot, gone

Other Drives

Hard Disk

The spinning disk inside a PC or laptop

SSD And NVMe

SATA SSDs and M.2 NVMe drives

Pen Drive

USB and USB-C flash drives

Scan For Free.
Pay Only To Save.

See every file DRE Pro can bring back before you spend a rupee. ₹999 per computer a year, or ₹299 a month, plus GST.

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