Maxtor Hard Drive Recovery: How to Recover Data from Maxtor External Hard Drives

Maxtor’s external hard drives are renowned for efficient storage options: for backups and essential documents.

However, even with high-end performance capabilities, internal and external hard drives are susceptible to damage. Consequently, data loss can occur due to various reasons, such as accidental deletion or formatting.

Fortunately, the damage may not be permanent, and several solutions are available for data recovery. This article guides you through how to perform Maxtor hard drive recovery and lists methods to help you repair the hard drive.

About Maxtor Drives

The Maxtor Corporation was launched in 1982 and quickly grew into a reputable hard drive manufacturer. At one point, Maxtor was the world’s third-largest hard disk manufacturer.

Eventually, the company was acquired by hard drive giant Seagate in 2006. Maxtor is renowned for its portable and durable products at competitive prices. Maxtor drives also feature a SafetyKey feature to keep your data safe.

The Most Common Reasons for Maxtor Hard Drive Malfunctioning or Data Loss

Before you begin external hard drive recovery or attempt hard drive repair, you must analyze the reasons behind data loss or malfunctioning.

Let’s identify the most common reasons for Maxtor hard drive failure to determine the best course of action:

• 🗑️Accidental deletion – Sometimes, you can accidentally delete files on your hard drive. In such situations, you can use data recovery software for Maxtor disk recovery.
• 💿Formatting – If you directly format a Maxtor hard drive without any backups, this action will erase all the precious data on your hard drive. It can also be complicated to recover data from a formatted hard drive. Thus, it’s necessary to be very careful while formatting a disk/drive.
• 📂Unsupported file system –  It’s possible that your hard drive is incompatible with your OS, thus generating the “Unsupported File System” error. This happens because external hard drives don’t support all file systems, for instance, NTFS, exFAT, EXT3, etc. If your Maxtor external hard drive is not showing up, you will likely have to format it to resolve the issue.
• 🦠Virus or malware infection – Virus attacks or malware infections are notorious for causing hard drive failures and data loss.
• ⏏️Incorrect unplugging of the hard disk – If your external hard drive is not working, it could be due to improper connection or incorrect unplugging. An external storage device is mostly connected via a 2.0 or 3.0 USB connection, and the drive cables can be quite sensitive. If unplugged improperly, you could experience data loss.
• 🔌Power failure – Sudden power failures can cause significant damage to your computer and connected hard drives. It can impede the functioning of the external HDD and even cause data loss. Thus, one must always have a Power Supply Unit (PSU) attached to the computer or PC to prevent such an occurrence.
• 🔋Insufficient power – Sudden power surges or outages can cause irreparable damage to electric devices. The continuous flow of insufficient power can crash or corrupt your drive.
• 🔨Physical Damage – Sudden damage to the drive’s processor can result in the hard drive not working. You may need to contact a professional recovery service in such a scenario.

How to Recover Lost Data from Maxtor Hard Drives

Next, you’ll have to choose the best-suited data recovery app from plenty of options. Our pick is Disk Drill, a software that offers exceptionally high recovery rates, an intuitive interface, and a free trial version. What’s more, the Disk Drill is one of the best hard drive repair software in the industry, supports over 300 file types, and enables data recovery from all major file systems.

Moreover, Disk Drill comes with several advanced features. For Maxtor disk recovery, Disk Drill’s byte-to-byte feature is beneficial as the tool makes an image of the entire drive and facilitates data recovery.

Follow these steps to create a byte-level disk image of your Maxtor external hard drive and retrieve data from it using Disk Drill:

1. Download and Install Disk Drill.
2. Launch Disk Drill and select Drive Backup from the left panel.
3. Ensure that you’ve connected the Maxtor HDD to your PC. Select the hard drive and choose Byte-to-byte Backup.
4. Specify where Disk Drill will save the DMG backup file and click OK to start the backup.
5. Once the backup is complete, click Done.
6. Now, return to the Data Recovery section, and click Attach Disk Image. Browse through and select the disk image of the Maxtor HDD.
7. Select the All Recovery Methods option, then click Search for lost data.
8. Disk Drill will scan your Maxtor hard drive image to find recoverable files. This could take some time, depending on the image size. Once the scan completes, click Review found items.
9. Disk Drill allows you to Preview the discovered files: Hover over any file and click on the eye button to check details like the file path and last modified date.
10. Select files for recovery and click Recover.
11. Finally, select a recovery location that is a different drive than the affected HDD to prevent overwriting and errors. Click OK.

Maxtor Hard Drive Repair Guide

After successfully recovering data from a crashed or malfunctioning external drive, you can attempt Maxtor HDD repair.

Interestingly, unlike popular misconceptions, data recovery is quite possible without having to format your hard drive.

Here are some straightforward steps for you to successfully recover data:

Step #1: Check the Connection Cables and Connectors of Hard Drive & Computer

Hard disk repair doesn’t always have to be complicated. Very often, the issue arises from a bad USB port. Before attempting other methods, try connecting the hard drive to another USB port.

If you’re still unable to access the Maxtor HDD, try connecting it to another computer. Lastly, try using a different connecting cable.

Step #2: Rescan Your Drive in Disk Management

It’s possible that your computer might have gotten interrupted before establishing a connection to your hard drive.

To fix this issue, try rescanning your drive in Disk Management. Here’s how:

1. Press Win + X and click Disk Management.
2. Select the drive you want to rescan. Now, click Action > Rescan Disks.
3. Wait for the rescanning to complete.

Step #3: Update Your Drivers

Your computer drivers help establish and maintain the connection between the OS and hardware. Thus, updating or reinstalling outdated drivers can help fix a corrupted or broken hard drive.

Here’s how you can update your drivers:

1. Press Win + X and click Device Manager.
2. Expand the Disk Drives option and select your Maxtor hard drive.
3. Right-click the hard drive and click Update Driver.
4. Finally, Select Search automatically for updated driver software.

Step #4: Try to Unhide Files

By default, Windows hides files or drives for smooth operations. It’s thus possible that your Maxtor data is not showing up because Windows hid it. If you want to access your files, you can unhide them.

Here’s how you can unhide files with Windows File Explorer:

1. Access Windows File Explorer.
2. From the menu bar, click Options.
3. Now, go to the View tab and scroll down to Advanced Settings.
4. Select the Show hidden files, folders, and drives option.
5. Finally, click Apply and then OK.

Step #5: Assign or Change the Drive Letter

A missing drive letter causes your system to struggle to access the Maxtor HDD: You can try fixing the issue by assigning a drive letter or changing the existing one.

Here’s how you can assign or change a drive letter in Disk Management:

1. Press Win + X and click Disk Management.
2. Right-click the Maxtor hard drive and click the Change Drive Letter and Paths option.
3. Click Change if the external HDD already has a drive letter assigned to it. But if there is no drive letter assigned, click Add.
4. Choose a drive letter from the dropdown menu. Now, Click OK.
5. Finally, click Yes to confirm.

Step #6: Contact Your Local Service Center

If you’re unable to repair the Maxtor hard drive using disk repair software or tools mentioned above, you can reach out to a local data service center.

Here are some attributes to consider consulting a local service center for data recovery:

• Choose a reliable Service Center.
• Do preliminary research about the service’s average price, and ensure you agree to the price quote in advance.
• Ensure that the service you contact has a “No data/No charge” policy.

FAQ

Conclusion

Maxtor external hard drives are an excellent solution for data storage. But they are prone to unexpected data loss, damage and corruption. To prevent permanent data loss, ensure that you follow certain best practices like creating data backups, providing a sufficient power supply, etc.

However, if you happen to be in an unavoidable data loss situation, you can use one of the methods mentioned in this article to repair your Maxtor external hard drives and perform data recovery.