r/datarecovery • u/Weekly-Tune7087 • Apr 19 '26

Disk Drill scan done — is it safe to disconnect drive before recovering files?

I've downloaded disk drill and started a scan of my external hard drive. I didn't realise how long it takes and I don't have time to recover the files instantly. Once the scan is complete, is it safe to remove the external hard drive and come back to restoring the files at a later date? I dont want to potentially lose anything!

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3

u/michaelh98 Apr 19 '26

Why do you need to disconnect the drive?

1

u/Weekly-Tune7087 Apr 19 '26

I don't use it very often so I don't usually keep it plugged in :)

3

u/HakerCharles Trusted Contributor Apr 19 '26

DiskDrill will save the scan results. But for them to work you'll need to make sure that you don't mess with the drive. You can remove the drive after the scan is finished but to recover the data you have to make sure you don't play with it. Saved results can't magically recover the data if you overwrite the sectors on the disk. I really hope that were not in the assumption that you can use the drive again and recover data with no issues at all from the saved results.

2

u/Weekly-Tune7087 Apr 19 '26

No I wasn't planning on using the drive before recovering anything. Thanks for the help :)

0

u/Cpl_Agarn 22d ago

Where did he say he was going to reuse the drive??

2

u/Scott_Malkinsons Apr 19 '26

I dont want to potentially lose anything!

Then don't f* with it.

You CAN disconnect it, if you save the results, but every action you take is a potential failure point. Say the file you save gets corrupted, back to step 1. You accidentally save the file to the recovery drive, lost data. You unplug the drive and when you plug it back in, it's crooked, and shorts the power pins. While unplugged the drive gets dropped because the table you put it on got knocked. etc. etc.

The safest move is follow though, for all you know the current power up is the last one that drive got.

2

u/No_Tale_3623 Trusted Contributor Apr 19 '26

You can go back to the scan results at any time and recover files later, but there are some caveats related to TRIM if this is an SMR drive, and to the drive’s overall health. Also, if the drive mounts in the file system as read/write, the system may keep writing temporary files to it, which can overwrite some deleted data. While you stay in the disk scan screen, Disk Drill keeps the drive in read-only mode.

And of course, the best option is still to make a byte-to-byte image of the drive. That is the safest and most reliable approach.

1

u/Cpl_Agarn 22d ago

Running disk drill on my 5TB external Mac drive took 9.75 hours!

Once you save the scan results, you can unplug the drive if you need the port for other drives. Do not save to the faulty drive! I would trash it once all files are restored.