WD External Drive "not initialized" but has data on it?

[Tactical_1]

I have a WD External SATA 1TB Hard Drive that has ~700 GB of family memories/movies/documents/etc and it is now connected to Windows 8.

The original housing it came in was unsurprisingly cheap and the connection piece broke. I re soldered it on and the connection was made but the drive threw nothing but errors. I figured I messed it up so bought an external case and assembled it. Now however, the drive does not show up under my computer but does in Disk Management.

Disk Management claims that the HD has the full TB unallocated and not initialized. I don't want to initialize it because I don't want to lose the information I have on it. Any idea on how to get this working?

I have downloaded and used the Data Lifeguard available at WD and the External has passed the Quick Test so drivers are all there and working.

Thanks

 

[GhostRyder]

Umm, I would try first connecting it back to whatever PC version you were using before (Assuming Windows 7) and seeing whats up.

If that does not work, try messing with the connection that you re-soldered and making sure its all done fully correctly, something may have gotten crossed.

 

[Tactical_1]

I have tried it on another computer with the same issues. If I cannot think of a way to get this to work then I will have try the resoldering. Since I have already spent the money the new casing:
A StarTech.com 3.5in Silver USB 2.0 to SATA External Hard Drive Enclosure. (Sorry that should've been in the original post.)

I am really trying to figure out why the drive is seen in disk management but displaying as a blank external to see if I can get my OS to start pulling the info off.


Thanks for the suggestion though.

 

[DelJo63]

The problem is in the partition table; corrupted or totally missing.

GhostRyder is correct "Umm, I would try first connecting it back to whatever PC version you were using before (Assuming Windows 7) and seeing whats up."​

If the partition table is still viable, then you should be able to access the data.
Otherwise (sigh), you need to go down the Data Recovery path.

You are not the first to take a Win/7 HD to Win/8 and end-up going over Niagara Falls.