Cyclic Redundancy Check Error.

[Laidain]

My hardrive is broken and I want to recover data from it. it shows up on my computer but in device manager it has no drive letter. its an external hardrive.is there any recovery software out there for me to recover it that's free? it shows up in my control panel as external 3.0. it is a toshiba external hardrive. i plugged it into different computers but no luck. I have my steam games on it and their saved data please help.

[Azza ☠]

Under Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management
Computer Management (Local) > Storage > Disk Management (tab)

Right-click the volume and check if you can assign it a drive letter.
Also, under Properties > Tools > Error-checking, click on Check Now.
Ensure check for bad sectors is ticked.

[Laidain]

It didn't work ):

[10upN2DOWN]

CMD use DISKPART...be careful

[chiefputsa☒lag]

try recuva but it needs to scan a storage (hdd/ssd/flash drive) that has a drive letter.

[Laidain]

Is there any way to recover data from it with a free program that does not need a drive letter but recognizes something is wrong with the external hardrive?

[Azza ☠]

Is the disk even spinning? If it's not spinning, then no software will help you here.

Do you have a different USB cable to try?

Start > Run > Type "cmd.exe" (without the quotes), right-click from the list and run as admin.

Type: "diskpart"
Then: "list disk"

That will give you a list of all your drives with their drive numbers (not letters).
Find the drive number for the drive you want to assign a letter to.

Type: "select volume={number}" (no brackets/quotes, just the number assigned to your drive)
or: "select disk={number}" (work out the number by disk sizes, etc - make sure you get the right one)

Then type: "assign letter={letter}" (no brackets/quotes, just the letter you want to assign to the drive - be sure it is not used by another device such as a CD drive)

For example:
select volume=5
assign letter=x

If it can't do this your MBR (Master Boot Record) / Header is most likely damaged or destroyed.

---

You might be able to find some freebee data recovery software, but probably wasting your time - as they won't work. Consider the freebee "iCare Recovery Software" to try. However, most data recovery is complex and advance - costing $400-2000 for the app or someone to recover it for you.

[Laidain]

Thanks for the help my hardrive is broken. I don't mean you broke it but you helped diagnose the problem so that I wouldn't waste my time on a gone hardrive . But I have another question when you download a game you already paid for on steam and it was on this broken hardrive steam was installed on it can't i reinstall steam on another drive and redownload my games for free because i already paid for them using the account i paid for them on which is this one im typing from google chrome. Does that make sense?

[Azza ☠]

The games you purchased from Steam are your's for life.

Get a hard drive (suggest internal, rather than external - as it will be faster and more stable) with enough space available.

I personally highly recommend: Western Digital Black Edition 2TB, 3TB, or 4TB (depending on how much space you will need), such as WD3003FZEX. These are seriously fast, smart and advance hard drives for gaming purposes. Includes Vibration Control Technology (VCT), Corruption Protection Technology (CPT), and a large 64MB Dynamic Cache, etc. Even if they get tilted or bumped around inside your PC case, the plates auto-readjust to become flat and run at full performance again, with less chance of errors/corruption.

If required: Do you know how to install a new HDD inside your PC Case?

Next - Download and install the Steam Client on it:
http://store.steampowered.com/about/

For example: D:\Steam\

Then log into that and from the game library you will be able to re-download the games you want to play again. Just do them one at a time (and just the ones you want to play at the time), might take quite a bit of bandwidth.

[Laidain]

Will my save data for the games be there?

[Azza ☠]

No, however depending on the game some save to your "My Documents" folder, which happens to be on your main C:\ anyways, so not all will be lost.

[upcoast]

Originally posted by Pratigious:

Will my save data for the games be there?

Your saved game data progress is in steam cloud and Documents.

[Laidain]

Thanks everyone.

[_I_]

Originally posted by upcoast:

Originally posted by Pratigious:

Will my save data for the games be there?

Your saved game data progress is in steam cloud and Documents.

also depends on the game
some gamesaves are in the games folder
others in mydocs, or appdata, or windows registry ect..