USB Unrecognized device after running Autopsy on disk as file

Autopsy Help
1

Hi everyone, all the operations that I will mention in the following description have been done in Windows 11 or wsl 2.

I had a corrupted hard-disk (Maxtor M3 portable), that was mounted as “D:” in the file explorer but then I was not able to open it or navigate through files. I tried to run testdisk, but during deep search it got stuck therefore I interrupted it.

Then I downloaded Autopsy and I created a new case, but the disk was not present neither as “Disk image” nor “Local Disk”, thus I decided to pass it as “Logical files” because I saw it in the file explorer. The problem is that since I did it, the laptop doesn’t recognize anymore the disk.

As soon as I connect the disk, it appears in the “Device manager” as disk, but after few seconds, the device is disconnected and it appears as “USB Unrecognized device”.

Do you know if there is a remote possibility to revert and get back at least to the initial situation? Because I think that passing the hard-disk as file to Autopsy caused the problem.
If it can help, I have the disk information taken with testdisk before using Autopsy, in case I can use them to overwrite wrong metadata or something like that.

I would be very grateful if any of you could help me or tell me if there’s nothing more to try.

2

Change one thing at a time to isolate thr problem!

Try loading it on a diffrent computer or use a diffrent caddy for the hdd.

Dont try to fix the disk, as youll write to it!
Ideally you should have a write blocker…

3

Thank you for the response, but I already tried a different device.
The situation at the moment is the one I described, therefore I don’t know what you mean by not try to fix the disk.

4

If its not for an investigation and was detected you could run scandisk for errors.

I think your next try is the disk in another caddy. Or with another cable.

If that dosent work you need to find whats wrong with the disk.

Spindal, ligic board etc… Then repair.
It might be worth seeing if there are any specialists near you at that point!

5

Okay, I’ll try, thanks.