Portable hard drive is not responding when trying to access data

[Ravichandran]

I have a portable hard drive and more important data in it. But since recently, i can't open folders in the drive. When i am trying to open folders, the hard drive is like frozen. The drive is detectable. Even i can see the folders in it. The problem is i can't access the data in it. Please help me with fixing the problem.

[Yogi89]

use linux or some imaging program to make a image of the hard drive in case it is starting to fail, then pull the files you need from the image

[borghese]

Which is the Operatin System?
There are some error messages?

[Ravichandran]

I checked with windows 10, windows 8.1 and windows 7. but the result is same. No error messages are displayed. just freeze the hard drive when i am trying to access the files in it.

[Dataforensics]

Plus one for trying to make an image copy if you can, that way you may protect what is still recoverable.

If you cannot use Linux, Accessdata I believe still allow personal download of their forensic imaging tool FTK Imager.

A Google search will find it.

[duak]

I don't know what your knowledge of disks and operating systems is.  First thing, don't write anything to the malfunctioning disk.  Recovery software can usually figure out what's wrong if the directory data hasn't been overwritten.  Note, the following tools can all write data to a disk, so try to understand what the tool is trying to do.

Of Windows, I'm most familiar with Windows XP although it's been a few years.  There is a GUI based disk utility in the administrative tools that can check and repair some of the basic faults on a drive. 

Windows CHKDSK run in a DOS window can be useful.  Try CHKDSK x: where x is the drive letter of the malfunctioning drive.  CHKDSK will not write to the disk unless the /F option is used.

Testdisk ( https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk ) is a very good data recovery tool for Linux or Windows. It can recover files from disk images so, if possible, copy the malfunctioning disk's data to another disk and work on it there.

Linux's DDRESCUE is a most excellent way to make an image copy of a malfunctioning disk.

Cheers,

[bob225]

Pull the hard drive out of its enclosure and put in a pc, then run the tests - Most externals use Seagate, WD or Samsung drives and they have there own diagnostic tools, I take its a usb external ? there could be a issue with the interface

Making a boot cd/usb stick with a Linux distro is the simplest method, If you want to go down that route that is

[borghese]

Have you tried with administrator permission?

[Ravichandran]

Yeah i tried it with an administrative permission. I will also try what Mr. Bob says.