How to recover data from external hard disk in 5 ways

If you don’t routinely back up your data and have lost essential files from an external hard drive, external hard drive recovery can be challenging.

External hard disk data recovery can be more difficult if you encounter disk corruption or formatting. But don’t worry! This article offers tried and tested methods, and can help you restore data from external hard disks.

Applying a professional external hard drive recovery tool like EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard will simplify data recovery. Before we get into the how, let’s consider some common ways data is lost from external hard drives.

Common types of external hard disk data loss

Various causes can be behind data loss from an external hard disk, including human faults and disk errors:

Physical damage: Data recovery will be difficult or impossible if the external hard disk is physically broken due to water damage, accidental falls, or other situations. Data recovery software may not help, and you’ll need to lean on professional data recovery services.

Accidental deletion: For this situation, the sooner you apply a recovery program, the more data you are likely to be able to restore. The longer it is left after file deletion, the more likely it is that the data will be overwritten.

Disk formatting: This is necessary when converting the file system, but the operation erases everything on the external hard drive. For this situation, first try data recovery software, and if this is unsuccessful you should try more advanced methods.

File system corruption: You may encounter disk corruption while using the hard drive, which can be automatically fixed with Windows error check tools. You can repair the disk and recover your data.

Operating system errors: The Windows and macOS operating systems can encounter sudden issues and unexpectedly shut down. The file you just saved, edited, downloaded, or sent may be deleted when this happens. If the OS cannot boot, try a portable data recovery tool or use another PC to access data on the external hard drive.

Here are five solutions for the above data loss scenarios:

Method 1. Recover data from external hard disks with data recovery software

The deleted items on a computer will usually be moved to the Windows Recycle Bin. However, files accidentally deleted from an external hard drive will not be kept in the Recycle Bin. Files deleted following a virus attack, OS corruption, or disk formatting will not be found in the Recycle Bin either.

In these situations, it’s recommended that you apply the EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard. This external hard disk recovery tool has both Windows and Mac versions. A trial version can be easily obtained from EaseUS’ official website.

This EaseUS external disk recovery tool supports the best external hard drive brands, including Seagate, Western Digital, SanDisk, Toshiba, LaCie, etc. It can quickly restore deleted files from an external HDD or SSD, even from a BitLocker encrypted drive.

It’s not complicated to use this software and restore data from external disks:

Step 1. Launch the EaseUS data recovery tool and locate your external hard drive. If it is not showing up, reconnect the drive and press the refresh button. Choose your external hard disk and select “Scan for lost data”.

Step 2. The software will scan the whole disk, and all the missing pictures, documents, videos, zip files, and audio files will appear on the right side.

Step 3. Before saving all the recoverable external hard drive files, you can preview files by double-clicking them to choose exactly what you want to restore.

Method 2. Recover external hard drives from a backup

After losing data on an external hard drive, you should check all the backup disks in an effort to find and restore useful data from them.

If the backup files are stored in the cloud, you can re-download them on the external hard drive. But if you plan to apply data recovery software later, don’t save any new files on the disk – it may overwrite your lost data.

To restore data from a backup disk, connect the disk to the PC and transfer your files using the copy-and-paste shortcut (Ctrl + C/V).

Method 3. Recover data from external hard drive with data recovery services

Although professional data recovery software can solve most external hard drive data loss situations, you may need an advanced recovery plan for more complex technical problems.

Data recovery service is a good choice when facing external hard disk physical damage, corrupted RAID, GPT-protected disks, and other issues. External hard drive recovery experts can solve various disk errors without losing data.

We highly recommend you find online recovery labs to diagnose your problem first. EaseUS data recovery services can be a wise choice, and you can contact data recovery experts anytime.

You can start an online chat from the website or email support@easeus.com. Describe your issue, and the experts will respond with a free data recovery report.

If you need a data recovery method for a corrupted external hard drive, try to use Windows built-in disk check tools to automatically repair the disk errors.

Step 1. Connect the external hard disk to the PC or laptop, open File Explorer, and locate the “This PC” page.

Step 2. Right-click the corrupted external hard drive and choose “Properties”, or press the Alt + Enter shortcut to do so.

Step 3. Click the Tools tab and choose “Check”. This tool can automatically scan the external hard drive’s fixed file system errors.

Step 4. After solving the file system corruption issues on your external hard drive, you should be able to access or recover data from the disk.

Method 5. Repair external hard disk and recover data using CMD

If you are familiar with Command Prompt or command lines, use the CHKDSK command to repair and clean up your external hard disk.

This method relies on the same type of tools we mentioned above in Method 4. Choose a suitable tool to repair external hard disks and recover data.

Step 1. Find and click the Windows search box from the Windows bar.

Step 2. Type cmd and run the Command Prompt as administrator.

Step 3. In the Command Prompt window, type chkdsk drive letter: /f. This should fix the external hard drive file system and directory corruption issues.

If you cannot solve the corruption issues and access data from the external hard disk, request professional help.

Conclusion

Understanding the common data loss types will help you prevent data loss on an external hard drive.

It’s always a good habit to create backups of essential files. If you want to view the files on computers and mobile phones, you can upload them to cloud storage or an external hard disk.

Never feel frustrated about data loss! EaseUS data recovery tool and other professional hard drive recovery tools will help you find important files in minutes.