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Jul 14,2020 • Filed to: Hard Drive Recovery • Proven solutions

“How fix a corrupted and unreadable external hard drive and access files from it? I plugged the portable drive on my PC, and now it is showing that drive is inaccessible! Can I fix it? Can I recover my files from the disk if it still doesn’t open?”

An external hard drive is undoubtedly one of the frequently used electronic gadgets in the world today. You are inclined to use it on multiple computers, which may or may not be infected with some malware.

If you boot up your computer on one of those occasions to access content from the portable hard drive and find that your computer is unable to read that disk, then you need to repair it as soon as possible to gain access to those files again. The external hard drive becomes unreadable and corrupted due to carelessly disconnecting or powering down the drive without following the eject drive protocol. You can repair the unreadable external drive with a quick scan on the PC with the help of the disk checking utility and its drive repair function.

Worst case scenario, if you are not able to fix the disk, then there is a way to recover all the valuable data, which you can quickly learn after reading this guide.

Part 1: Situation: Hard Drive is Corrupted and Unreadable

As mentioned earlier, your portable hard drive is prone to damage daily since it is used with such doggedness that one can forget how delicate the gadget is. Because of this scenario, many problems may occur with the drive, and the standard most error that typically happens is the “External Drive or its directory becoming corrupt or unreadable.” Such error comes with a message which is displayed when your operating system fails to read or open the external disk. Many factors may lead to this error, and fortunately, here, you will learn to implement different available fixes to ease your mind.

Part 2: Why the Hard Drive Becomes Unreadable and corrupted?

Whenever you get the error notification upon opening the external drive: 'H: is not accessible.” It means that the file or directory of the disk either corrupted or unreadable, and you need to fix that. There might be numerous factors behind the external drive becoming unreadable, but the leading cause you should consider is that there might be some file system damage to your portable storage device. Here we will discuss some of those causes that could lead to your disk getting corrupted:

• Virus infection or malware attack occurs due to casual and unsafe browsing on the internet. If you happen to download a suspicious or pirated file from a shady website and open through the file explorer, it might infect your computer and all the devices connected to it, as well. Such a mistake could convert the file system of your external hard drive into RAW and make it corrupt/unreadable. Thus the “Drive is not accessible” notification; it is a known fact that RAW file format makes it impossible for Windows to read and access the partition or flash drive.


• Corrupted Master File Table is the other culprit behind the HDD becoming unreadable and you not being able to open the contents of the disk. A partition table is mainly gets damaged due to improper handling of the hardware, such as removing the external hard drive from the PC without using the “Safely Remove Hardware” option.


• An unexpected Power Failure may also cause the drive to misbehave and corrupt. Before using the gadget, you necessarily must make sure the USB ports of the PC and the disk alike are functioning correctly.


• Physical damages to the external hard drive should also be considered as the reason behind the external drive becoming unreadable. If you have accidentally dropped the device, it may cause some internal damage and making it impossible for the system to access the files. In this case, you must send the drive to an expert for a brief fix.

Part 3: How To Fix Unreadable and Corrupted Hard Disk?

If the damage to the drive is not physical, then you can repair the unreadable and corrupt device without any hassle. There are three popular methods mentioned below that will fix your external storage drive in no time.

1. Run the CHKDSK command through cmd prompt utility.


2. Update the driver.


3. Reformat the Disk to remedy the unreadable hard drive factor.

However, before doing something drastic, you should look into the following thing to ensure the fact of whether the problem is with your disk or not.

• Try using your hard drive on another PC, if your PC can’t detect it. It will solidify the fact that the disk is corrupt, and there is something wrong with the drive, and measures should be taken.


• It is essential to check the power supply of both the PC and the drive. There is a slight chance that due to over-usage, the power cable might have stopped working.


• There are multiple USB slots on the computer, and you should try changing the USB port or insert some other flash drive to check whether the port is working or not.


• In the Disk Management utility, try changing the drive letter of the storage media, which could help to restore data inside the corrupted hard drive.

1. Run the CHKDSK Command through cmd prompt Utility:

CHKDSK is used to identify the status of the drive, its file system, and the metadata of the drive’s format for logical and physical errors. You can enable the command by following the guide below:

• Open Command Prompt from the Start menu by entering “cmd” and running it as an administrator.


• Type the command in the display window with the assigned letter of the damaged hard drive: chkdsk I: /f /r /x (“I” is the assigned letter of the scanned drive).


• The command will take some time to scan the disk and fix the detected issue immediately.

It would be best if you were careful while using “Command Prompt” as it can get pretty technical; entering a wrong command could lead to severe damage to the computer.

2. Update the driver of the USB Device:

There is a chance the driver of the external device might not be up-to-date. You can update the driver by opening Windows’ Device Manager feature, and here is the step-by-step guide to help you through it.

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• Open Device Manager by entering the keyword in the Windows search bar.
• Locate the driver under the “Universal Serial Bus Controllers” section and click on it.
• Click on “Update Driver” and pick the option “Search automatically for updated driver software.”


• Let the manager do its work.

The manager will work its charm if it detects a faulty driver; Otherwise, check the third method to fix the issue.

3. Reformat the Corrupted Disk:

Formatting the drive is an extreme step! It should only be done if the file system of your device has become RAW. Here are the instructions to format the external hard disk.

• Open Disk Management from the Windows search bar.


• Locate your external drive from the list of disks.


• Right Click on it and pick the “Format” option.


• If the file system is RAW, change it to NTFS and click on OK.


• You can also change the allotted letter of the drive.

This option should only be picked if you do not intend to recover the data inside.

Part 4: How to Recover Data from the Repaired Hard Drive?

Data from an unreadable hard disk is recoverable with the help of a third-party data recovery application. Recoverit Data Recvoery will help you recover items which are under threat of getting deleted. Before performing the recovery operation, it is best to understand the features of the program, which are mentioned below:

Recoverit Data Recovery

A Life Saver to Solve Your Data Loss Problems!

• Recoverit offers data recovery from a lost partition, unreadable or corrupt drives, and every other kind of inaccessible data.
• The app supports more than 1000 different file formats, which include every bit of media files.
• You can recover any amount of data from a crashed computer and external devices such as USB, portable hard disks, and memory cards.
• The software lets you preview the recovered items and allows you to save them to any location of your choice.

Here is the three-step guide to use the application and retrieve lost content in a matter of minutes.

Step 1 Choose the Location of the Drive to start

Launch the program on your PC and pick the damaged drive under the “External Devices” section. Push the start button after that.

External Hard Drive Repair Mac Application

Step 2 Wait for the Application to Finish the Scan

You will have to wait for a few minutes as Recoverit will scan the damaged drive and extract all data from it. The app also offers to pause or stop the process in between. The program will notify you once it completes the scan.

Step 3 Save your Data

In the end, you can view through the program’s preview feature, which displays the content under different categories. After checking the files, select the needed items, and click on the “Recover” button. You can save the data to a location where you feel it will be safe.

Bottom Line:

Over and careless use of any machine or biological figure would eventually result in its demise. Now you know the causes behind an external drive becoming readable and the convenient methods to repair it. There’s a slight chance that the data inside the corrupt drive may get erased, you can prevent all of the issues if you use Recoverit program. Feel free to spread the word to your friends and family, who are dealing with such a problem.

Get a data lifeguard for Mac

Most of the time, when you connect an external hard drive to your Mac’s USB port, you soon see it mount on the desktop. Apple likes to ensure these are easy to find, so they also appear in the Finder in the left-hand column under Devices, since Mac’s treat them the same way as another computer.

However, sometimes, an external hard drive doesn't show up. It’s annoying, especially when you need to transfer something right then. And besides, there can be a risk that data on the external USB pen, hard, or flash drive is corrupt, which means you can’t transfer what you need between devices at all.

Corrupt data can be one reason your Mac won't recognize an external drive, but there are other reasons too. Let’s take a look why this is happening and how you can get an external drive to appear on your Mac and get recover data to access to your documents.

How to fix an external disk drive that won't show up on a Mac

Why an external disk drive is not showing up? There could be a few reasons why a USB flash drive isn’t making an appearance.

Open an External Drive Not Showing on Mac

Get a huge set of top utilities for troubleshooting external hard drives not mounting on a Mac

Start with the basics:

1. Check whether the drive is properly plugged in. It sounds obvious, but since this relies on a wire - either a USB cable or HDMI cable - if it’s not connected properly then it won’t appear on your desktop.
2. Faulty cable. Assuming it’s plugged in correctly, not wobbly or loose, the cable could be at fault. Try connecting the same device with a different cable.
3. Damaged USB or flash drive port. It could be a hardware issue with the Mac. If you’ve got another port, try connecting the device to that one.
4. Reboot your Mac. Sometimes, if a USB disk won't boot, the cause is macOS issue. Hopefully, some data damage that can be fixed by restarting. Choose the Apple menu > Restart. Or press and hold the power button and, when a dialog box appears, click the Restart or press R. Restarting your Mac essentially clears your macOS’s memory and starts it up fresh.
5. Incorrectly formatted drive. Not every external drive is optimized for Macs. It could be that you are trying to connect something only fit to interact with Windows devices. If you’ve got a PC or laptop, it’s worth connecting and seeing if you can access the files through another device. The best way to look for an incorrectly formatted drive is to go to
   Apple (in the top toolbar menu) > About This Mac > Storage.
   See if the external drive shows up here. For more information, go to the same menu option, then select System Report.
6. Mac not formatted to display external drives on the desktop. It could be that your Mac already recognizes the device, but just isn’t showing its icon on the desktop screen. Even if that is the case, the drive will still appear in the left-hand column of the Finder menu under Devices. You should be able to access your drive that way, and, in the Finder menu under Preferences > General, you can check External Drives to ensure that from now on it shows up on your desktop too.
7. Reset NVRAM. To do this, shut down or restart your Mac, switch it back on and immediately press these four keys together for at least 20 seconds: Option, Command, P, and R. It should look as though your Mac has started again; if it has, release the keys when you hear the second startup chime. Hopefully, the hard drive has shown up now.
8. Check Apple’s Disk Utility to see if an external drive is showing up. Disk Utility is within System Preferences, or you can find it using Spotlight. If it is visible, then click the option to Mount, which should make it visible on the desktop and in the External Drives option in the Finder menu.

Unfortunately, if none of those options has worked and the external drive still isn’t visible, then it could have crashed, or be well and truly broken. But there might still be a way you can recover the data on the external drive.

How to show connected devices in Finder

1. Go to the Finder menu and select Preferences (Cmd+comma).
2. From General tab tick External disks to ensure that from now on it shows on the desktop.

In the Sidebar tab you can choose which folders and devices will be shown in the left-hand column of the Finder window.

How to add cloud storages to Finder

External Hard Drive Repair App For Mac

You can also mount cloud storage as local drive on your Mac. By connecting Google Drive, Dropbox, or Amazon to your computer, you get more space for securely accessing and sharing files. For your ease, add cloud drives to Finder with CloudMounter app, so that you keep them close at hand. You can read detailed instructions on managing cloud storage as local drives here.

Repair the failed external drives with First Aid

If your drive is having problems, you can try to fix them yourself with First Aid and therefore get access to your files. First Aid tool will check the disk for errors and then attempt a repair as needed. It helps to verify and repair a range of issues related to startup HD and external drive problems. If you are able to fix the hard drive or SSD in your Mac (or an external drive) using Disk Utility you will hopefully be able to recover your files.

To run Fist Aid on an external hard drive:

1. Open Disk Utility. You can searching for it using Spotlight Search or via Finder > Application > Utility
2. Check on your external hard drive, click the First Aid tab and select Run to start running diagnostics.

If First Aid successful in fixing errors, the external drive should be available to mount. If the utility unable to repair issues, your drive truly is broken or formatted using a file system that the Mac cannot read - in this way we suggest you follow the next steps to recover data from a damaged disk drive.

How to recover data from a crashed drive

Thankfully, there is an app for that. Disk Drill is the world’s premier data recovery software for Mac OS X. Powerful enough to retrieve long-lost, mistakenly deleted files from Macs, external hard drives and USB drives and camera cards.

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An easy way to recover lost files on an external hard drive

Providing you already have Disk Drill Pro version, which you can get automatically by downloading from Setapp:

1. Connect your drive to the Mac.
2. Quit all other applications on the Mac, especially those that may be trying to access the external drive (e.g. iPhoto, Words)
3. Launch Disk Drill.
4. Click on the external drive that you are trying to recover files from. If it has partitions, you will see all of them. If, however, you still don’t see any volume to the external drive then you may need to try some of the steps above again or read the Disk Drill Scanning FAQs.
5. To avoid the external drive being accessed during the recovery process, click Extras next to the drive or drive partition or file, then select Remount Volume As Read Only. A padlock will appear, protecting the drive during the process.
6. Now click Rebuild (or Recover) next to the file(s) you are trying to recover. Once the scan is finished - it may take some time if the files are large - a list of files will appeal.
7. Next, click Mount Found Items as Disk button on the bottom-left below the scan results.
8. Disk Drill “strongly suggest saving the files to a different drive than the one you are trying to recover files from. Saving to the same drive substantially lowers your chances of recovery.”
9. A drive icon will appear, which once you double click will give you the option to open the files as you would do before they were lost. Drag them to another location, such as your desktop or a folder on your Mac.
10. Open the files to ensure they have been recovered properly and safely eject the external drive.

Disk Drill does have other ways to recover lost files but assuming there aren’t complications, this method is the most effective. Disk Drill Pro recovery app is available from Setapp, along with dozens of Mac apps that will make your life easier. Never have to worry about a crashed or corrupted external drive again.

A few more tips on getting your files back

1. Macs and third-party apps that look after Macs, such as Disk Drill and iStat Menus come with a S.M.A.R.T. (also known as Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) status monitor. If a SMART check reports errors, then it could mean the hard drive is at risk of failing completely. Within Disk Utility and Disk Drill, there are several solutions for this: Repair Disk Permissions and Repair Disk. If neither work, it’s recommended that you backup all of the data from the disk, erase, then run a SMART check again. The external hard drive should show up as Verified.
2. Partitions can get lost within hard drives, temporarily hiding all of the information contained within. Disk Drill can help to identify and restore this information.
3. Within Disk Drill, you can restore data when a hard drive is damaged or add formatting, which is also something Disk Utility can help with.
4. CleanMyMac, another useful app available from Setapp, can help you identify external hard drive errors and repair them. It is an essential tool worth trying when you’re having external hard drive difficulties.

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Alternative ways to recover data from an external hard drive

Free External Hard Drive Repair

Reset the System Management Controller (SMC) if your Mac shuts down when you plug in an external hard drive. Then use a different port to connect the external hard drive. If you’ve got a battery that you can’t remove:

• Shut down and unplug the power adapter
• Press Shift-Control-Option and the power button at the same time. Do this for 10 seconds
• Release all keys
• Plug the power adapter back in and switch your Mac back on

For Macs with removable batteries, you need to switch them off, remove the battery, then press and hold the power button for 5 seconds. After that, put the battery back in, plug in the power adapter and switch the power on again.

What’s your file format? One reason your Mac isn’t recognizing the hard drive is the file format. Windows uses NTFS file formats, while Macs, up until the introduction of Sierra, have used HFS+. Now, Apple has introduced the Apple File System (APFS) for newer operating systems. It is possible to format a hard drive so it can be read on Mac and Windows computers, providing you format using exFAT. However, if you’re having problems accessing the files and the issue is due to formatting, you will need to connect it to a device it can be read on, and then format the files correctly for the computer you are going to use it on next.

How to make Ext2/Ext3 drives readable on Mac

The common issue is Ext2- and Ext3-formatted drives are not readable on macOS. There are two ways to access such external drives on your Mac – via Linux OS or FUSE system. The easiest would be installing Linux to a secondary drive or virtual machine.

Portable External Hard Drive For Mac

If you go with Linux installation, dual boot your Mac with Linux on another drive and use FAT32 as a transfer intermediary. If you don’t have a drive to install Linux to, use virtual machine as an interface for it. Transferring can be done the same way – with FAT32, or via network.

Another option for reading Ext2/Ext3 disks is mounting disk with Filesystem in Userspace (FUSE). Basically, it works as an extra interface enabling file system access via specially installed modules. Here’s how to mount drives with FUSE:

1. Install FUSE for macOS or MacFUSE as well as fuse-ext2 module.
2. Use the following Terminal command to enable Disk Utility’s debug menu and see all partitions: defaults write com.apple.DiskUtility DUDebugMenuEnabled 1
3. Attach your Ext2/Ext3 drive and locate the device name via Disk Utility.
4. In your user account, create a folder to be used as a mount point.
5. Use the following Terminal command to mount the drive as read-only: fuse-ext2 /dev/disk2s2 /Volumes/mountpoint
6. For write support, use the command: fuse-ext2 -o force /dev/disk2s2 /Volumes/mountpoint

And that’s not the only case where Terminal helps you access external drive.

Good External Hard Drive For Mac

Employ the handy all-powerful Terminal, which always comes forward with solutions for difficult problems. Especially if System Information does recognize the USB or hard drive, but continues to hide it from you, disconnect the drive and try to find it using the Terminal, which you can find in Applications > Utilities.

• Once in the Terminal, type in the command diskutil list
• A list with information about volumes and drives should appear
• Look for a section labelled /dev/disk_ (external, physical)
• Make a note of the whole line after the word disk
• Now put the following command into the Terminal diskutil info disk followed by the number or digits assigned to that disk
• Now you should see detailed information about the drive, therefore confirming that your Mac can and does recognize it
• Eject using the Terminal by entering the command diskutil eject disk followed by the number or digits assigned to that disk
• Physically remove the disk from you Mac
• Plug it back in and your Mac should recognize it

Console is also reliable when it comes to solving tricky problems, although it isn’t always that easy to use. You can find Console under Applications > Utilities > Console. Console shows if an external drive or any error is detected under the Errors and Faults tab. If no errors show up, then the problem is not caused by the device.

To sum up, there are lots of potential solutions for a Mac not reading an external hard drive. If we were to pick one, Disk Drill seems to be the most well-rounded, offering plenty of customizations and power in an easy-to-use interface. Disk Drill Pro recovery app is available via Setapp, along with 150+ Mac apps that strive to make your life much much easier. At the very least, you’ll never have to worry about a crashed or corrupted external drive ever again.