My external harddrive suddenly stopped working. I didn't bang it, didn't remove it improperly, etc. Just stopped working. It started to give a recurring kind of sound like it was failing to read.
Details: don't know firmware version but it's a Buffalo HD-CB 1.5 TB ?model. My computer is running Vista Home Premium. Don't know if you need much more than that.
Description: External is not showing up in 'my computer' at all. It appears under 'Safely Remove Hardware' as 'USB Mass Storage Device (TurboPC)' but without a drive letter.
Steps I've taken:
- Plugged into different USB ports-- no change
- Tried on my laptop--no change
- Accessed Disk Management. It appears in the lower area as 'Disk 1' but has 'Unknown' and 'Not Initialized' below it. Upon trying to initialize it I get a Cyclic Redundancy Error (for both MBR and GPT)
- Tried to update driver--says up to date.
I would really appreciate some help with this! I have a lot of files on here and it disenheartens me that they could just randomly disappear so easily, even after taking good care of my external.