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I can not access to my Toshiba 500G external hard disk

by Lalith6 May 14, 2014 4:04PM PDT

I got a problem in my computer and needed to re-image it. Before that I copied all files to my password protected Toshiba 500 External hard disk. The same hard disk was not able to open in any other computer except in the one re-image. After re-image the computer i try to open the HDD. In the device manager, i can see the hard disk when i connected it into computer. But i can not open it and access to file inside. Help me to solve this. I am using Windows 7 (32 bit) computer.

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4 Posts
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Re: external disk
by Kees_B Forum moderator May 14, 2014 4:59PM PDT

A password protected external hard disk isn't standard.Can you tell more about how you did that?
And cen you tell about what exactly you did when re-imaging?

As an example, the Windows EFS (encrrypted file system) stores its key (that you need to unencrypt it) on the internal hard disk. Many people forget to backup that encryption key, so when something happens to that internal disk or they reinstall the OS, the data on that encrypted file sysetm are unaccessible. That might be the same as happened to you.
Of course, after restoring an image everything should be the same, but maybe for some reason, it wasn't.

If something like that is case, go to lostpassword.com and pay them to recover your data.

Kees

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thanks, this question just made me realize something
by James Denison May 15, 2014 12:54PM PDT

I'd never checked my external 2TB backup drive to see if I could access it in Linux.

Nope. It's only seen as unallocated space.

Plug into my XP computer. Seen as CD Drive it can't read.

Hmm. Unplug it's USB, unplug it's power cord.

Plug power back in and wait for blinking front light, then plug USB in.

Discover it can now be seen by windows, so WD files I just downloaded are not needed right now.

Not a happy camper with that setup which only allows Windows to access it and even that seeming to be too touchy.

I suppose you have done shutdown of power and unplug USB cable and then power the drive and wait a bit and put USB cable back?

Since my WD My Book has software to allow access to the drive which gets loaded to the XP, I'd suggest you need to find Toshiba support and look for any software that allows access to your 500 GB, which is almost certain if it has a password program on it.

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found one person's solution to Toshiba 500GB drive problem
by James Denison May 15, 2014 1:26PM PDT
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" my password protected "
by r. proffitt Forum moderator May 16, 2014 12:42AM PDT

That's a problem in the making. Be sure to have a free from password backup that you can fall back on when this fails. I've lost count of folk that use encrypted file systems and forget to backup a copy in the clear.

These encrypted systems are not reliable enough for me to write otherwise. If you feel there is a flaw there, time to get a refund or reconsider its use.
Bob

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