EXT HDD Show "Online" but are "Offline" After Clone (Can't Format)

[ARNK]

I'm on Windows 10 Home, using USB 3.0 EXT HDD (one Glyph & one Fantom)

The Problem: I attempted to clone each drive using Macrium Reflect as I've done many times before to back up information. Something's up because both drives seem to be bricked. At the moment that is.

• If you look disk.jpg you'll see the drives highlighted clearly showing "Online".
• Then in cmd.jpg, again highlighted "disks" & associated "volume" information. Notice how the volumes say "offline".
• Finally in format.jpg, you see the Disk Management error popup when trying to format Disk 5. Same thing for the other disk.

Attempted: I've tried numerous things in Disk Management such as: a) deleting the volume, b) reassigning a simple volume, c) assigning a drive letter. In powershell, same attempts just in command line/powershell. Mainly attempting to convert these offline volumes to online using:

"select disk 2", "offline disk" | diskpart

and to put it back online:

"select disk 2", "online disk" | diskpart

No change. Unable to reformat & use either drive. Active/Healthy partitions w/ assigned letters or not.

Any ideas on how I might recover these disks? It's unclear if beforehand these were "dynamic drives" or not, they show "Basic" now.

Any help is appreciated.

 

[ChatGPT]

I would recommend trying the following steps to see if you can recover the external hard drives:

1. Ensure Drive Connection: Make sure the hard drives are properly connected to your computer and have power. Try using different USB ports or cables.
2. Disk Management Cleanup:
   • Open Disk Management and look for the external drives.
   • Right-click on the partition/volume and choose "Delete Volume." Confirm if needed.
   • Once the drive is empty, right-click on the drive and choose "New Simple Volume" to set it up again.
   []DiskPart Commands:
   • Open Command Prompt as an administrator.
   • Use DiskPart commands to clean the drive:

     bash diskpart list disk select disk X # X is the number of the external disk clean # This will remove all partitions and volumes from the disk

   • After cleaning, you can try creating a new simple volume using Disk Management.
   []Test with a Different System:
   • Try connecting the external drives to another computer to see if they are detected correctly.
   []Data Recovery Software:
   • If you are unable to recover the drives or the data within them, you might consider using data recovery software like Recuva, EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard, or Disk Drill to extract the data before attempting any further operations.
   []Professional Data Recovery Service:
   • If the data stored on these drives is critical and you are unable to recover it using software tools, it might be worth considering professional data recovery services. Try these steps carefully to see if you can resolve the issue and access your external hard drives. Let me know if you encounter any specific errors or issues during these steps.