[Technology] Help: How to recover external HDD data without formatting?

[happypig]

take the HDD out and use one of these to test it. Will prove if it's a disk or interface issue :
https://www.amazon.co.uk/USB-SATA-A...ocphy=1006692&hvtargid=pla-350356906275&psc=1

 

[1066familyman]

take the HDD out and use one of these to test it. Will prove if it's a disk or interface issue :
https://www.amazon.co.uk/USB-SATA-A...ocphy=1006692&hvtargid=pla-350356906275&psc=1

It's an external HDD. Plug and play usb.

We got as far as finding it using testdisk on a Windows machine. Can't seem to create an image of the lost files on another external HDD though, only the downloads folder of the machine we're running Testdisk on it seems.

Good news is the data is there to be recovered. Just need to work out how to use Testdisk properly I think, then we might have a result.

Thanks for everyone's help and advice so far.

 

[happypig]

It's an external HDD. Plug and play usb.

It'll have a standard 2.5" SATA drive in it, they all do. Some are easier to open than others but they all come apart and the drive inside just unplugs.