When I plug in my Passport I get the following message. I don’t want to re-format and just want to access my data? What can I do?
Hello. According to the issue that you are currently experiencing, it could be data corruption. The data corruption on the drive happens, when the external hard drive is disconnected improperly or when the computer freeze while the drive is connected.
As an option to recover the data on the drive, you can try by opening it from Disk Management. Right click on the drive’s partition and choose the option that says open or explore. You can identify the correct drive by its size.
If you are unable to retrieve the data, I can recommend to use the Ontrack’s data recovery software.
Please see the link below for more information.
http://www.ontrack.com/freesoftware/
By formatting you should be able to use it again but formatting will erase all data on the drive.
How do I open ‘Disk Management’?
adam
To get to disk management just right click on Computer icon and select manage. If the partition data is corrupt then this tool may fix it http://www.partitionwizard.com/ or TestDisk http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk but it is more complicated to use.
Joe
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Hi,
I have the same problem!
Of course I want to save my nearly 650 GB (of 750 GB capacity) data and will try the links above!
Hope to successful end 
I will comment here for everything I try!
Please advise if there are any other possibilities to save my data!
Thanks!
please try to ;
strart > run > cmd
than enter
after this, type this command; chkdsk k: /f than enter. it will check your disk file system and if it find a problem, will be repaired.
in the command parameter “k:” is your drive letter.
ps. if any error or something happend bad i am not taking responsibility. i try it and worked.
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I have the same problem, and I dont want to format my disk… Did someone fix the problem? How? I was thinking on trying the chkdsk command, but I’d like to know first if it will damage my data or something…
I tryed the chkdsk command and it worked! And without giving a new format to the disk ^^
I followed this thread of questions and answers. I first tried chkdsk /f, no joy. I used the first link you provided here and downloaded the free software. It is running as I type this message. I have a 1 TB external that this tool is allowing me to copy my data to another 1 TB drive. I clicked on the new drive and data that has already been recovererd is intact. The 1 TB drive was almost full with my movies and music so this was a huge save. Thank for the tips!!
