Data Recovery and Disk Utilities Forum @R-TT

I have a USB external hard drive from which I'm trying to recover some files. Hard drive is not making any unusual sounds. I'm on Windows 7.

When plugged in (power plug and USB), the hard drive does appear in the device manager, but I can't map it because the device manager says it needs initialized. I did not initialize it.

When I open RStudio, the drive is listed but RStudio "scan" is grayed out. Really, most of RStudio menu items are grayed out for this drive. It's as if RStudio sees the drive, but will not allow me to do anything with it.

Any input as to my options?

Is there a way for RStudio to access the drive – am I missing something?

Should I initialize and hope for the best, knowing I risk losing the data?

Should I give up and see professional assistance?

Thank you in advance.

Looks like the drive has internal errors, possibly with its USB circuitry. Is it possible to disassemble the drive's case and take the drive out? If yes, try to connect the drive to a computer through its interface, most likely, SATA using an internal computer port, or another SATA<->USB adapter.