# Hard drive suddenly appears unformatted--possible to recover?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-drive-suddenly-appears-unformatted-possible-to-recover/719619>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 9, 2015, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-drive-suddenly-appears-unformatted-possible-to-recover/719619 "2015-05-09T13:02:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\
**Post date:** [May 13, 2015, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-drive-suddenly-appears-unformatted-possible-to-recover/719619/22 "2015-05-13T02:15:55Z")

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> [@Terry\_Kennedy](#):
>
> The cynical view would be that people were buying these and “shucking” them to get the bare drives inside, since the USB versions often sold for less than a bare drive.

Heh. I actually have done that before. Why would or do external drives often cost less than internal drives, when they seem to be the same hardware with extra stuff like an enclosure and a SATA bridge (that is the right term for that card that connects from the USB and power source to the drive’s SATA and power connector, right?) The price difference wasn’t always that much: maybe 10 or 20 bucks. So it appears you can’t do this with all external drives anymore from what you’re saying, right?

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**Author:** ![Cugel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cugel/32/1199_2.png) [@Cugel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cugel)\
**Post date:** [May 13, 2015, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-drive-suddenly-appears-unformatted-possible-to-recover/719619/23 "2015-05-13T06:35:32Z")

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I’ve had success reviving cactus drives with GetDataBack

> **[GetDataBack — Data Recovery Software For Crashed Hard Drives](https://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm)**
>
> GetDataBack Data Recovery software. Recover data from inaccessible hard drives and USB sticks. Supports Windows NTFS, FAT, exFAT, Apple HFS+, APFS, and Linux EXT.

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**Author:** ![Terry\_Kennedy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@Terry\_Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terry_Kennedy)\
**Post date:** [May 13, 2015, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-drive-suddenly-appears-unformatted-possible-to-recover/719619/24 "2015-05-13T07:42:22Z")

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> [@pulykamell](#):
>
> Heh. I actually have done that before. Why would or do external drives often cost less than internal drives, when they seem to be the same hardware with extra stuff like an enclosure and a SATA bridge (that is the right term for that card that connects from the USB and power source to the drive’s SATA and power connector, right?) The price difference wasn’t always that much: maybe 10 or 20 bucks.

It seems to be a marketing thing.

> [@](#):
>
> So it appears you can’t do this with all external drives anymore from what you’re saying, right?

[Correct](http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1704/~/what-kind-of-hard-drive-is-inside-a-western-digital-external-product%3F)

> [@WDC Article](#):
>
> Depending on model, the internal hard drive in an external enclosure could be either SATA or native USB.

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**Author:** ![BurnMeUp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@BurnMeUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BurnMeUp)\
**Post date:** [May 13, 2015, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-drive-suddenly-appears-unformatted-possible-to-recover/719619/25 "2015-05-13T18:16:27Z")

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I have also had good luck with [Spinrite](https://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm)

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