Try a Linux live disc. It has saved the data day more than once for me when windoze failed.
Are your USB connections common? 3.0 <> 3.0 or 2.0 <> 2.0?
Plugged into what?
Windows XP, 7,8
Linux ?
Look for forensic disk tools
Simple. Plug in your backup drive and use that.
I do dual backups of my internal drive just to be safe (ie, to two external drives). Cannot afford to lose data, documents, music, photons, etc.
If you don’t have BU drives, go buy two.
Many of the USB type external hard drives, work, but are hampered by strange power requirements.
Use the USB cable that came with the device and it will probably be OK.
I had one that gave the same message, “needing Format”.
I changed the cable to a shorter one and it worked fine.
I also found that it worked well in one USB port and not in another. Also, check whether the USB needed is 2.0 or 3.0.
Buy an Apricorn Drivewire - about $40 bucks. Connect the hard drive to it and the Apricorn to the USB of another computer then copy the contents.
Usually even if the operating system on the old drive is trashed the apricorn device will let you read the data partitions and copy it.
1 - stop booting up this enclosure.
Most likely the logic board in the enclosure has failed, and if you remove the drive and place it in another enclosure, it will most likely work. If you ask some tech savvy friends ( or their children ) they likely have the knowledge and parts on hand to test this.
If this is from an operating system or boot issue, the tech could fix it.
If this is from a slow, misalignment of the heads (more common on a well-used drive), then a special utility like Spinrite 6.0 (grc.com) can fix it.
I had an external HD that would only work with the
USB cord that came with it.
Remorecover might help you.
Without seeing it or knowing exactly what you’re working with; I’d try taking it apart and getting the HD out of the enclosure, and try to plug in a USB>SATA cable into a laptop to connect the drive.
See if the OS pics it up and if you can browse into it. If it doesn’t spin up, the drive could have literally failed. I doubt this is the case though, since your OS is asking you to format it when you plugged it in while it was in the enclosure.
Hopefully, it’s a failure with the enclosure, and the drive is fine. Just get that drive out of there, and try to directly connect to it somehow. Again, I don’t know exactly what you have, or are working with. I’m blindly advising here, so approach my advice accordingly.
UBCD (Ultimate Boot CD). Install it to a thumb drive, plug in your external HDD, boot to the thumb drive, and you should be able to get additional information about the drive.
If it shows as formatted in NTFS and you can see data, then the data is recoverable. If you lost the master boot record, you might be able to recover it with the Windows install CD and booting to a recovery console.
My experience is that you have a good chance of getting your data back if you try a few things and are persistent. I agree with the power comments. You might also look into the possibility of putting your disk in the freezer (in a sealed bag). I don’t recall all the details of this, so you should look it up, but it has worked for me in the past.
Try Recuva: https://www.piriform.com/recuva
I believe it has a demo/preview mode in which it tells you what it could recover if you paid them.
If it shows you your files, pay them 25 bucks and recover your data. If not, pay the other guy 90 bucks.
If you do not know how to run Recuva, pay the other guy the 90 bucks :-)
Throw it in the freezer for an hour.
Plug it back in and back up as much as possible.
Repeat until you get everything.
True story.
If trying other cables, adapters, enclosures, USB ports, other laptop test, etc doesn’t not fix problem, try Spinrite.
https://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm
The freezer option should be last last resort.