Harddrive access outside windows

[TinCow]

This is the reason why it's good to always run two HDs, or at least two partitions. One for the OS, one for the data. Never install anything on the OS drive that you would care about losing. That way when you need to format, all you need to do is wipe the OS drive/partition and your data is untouched. I tend to leapfrog my HDs in this manner as I upgrade. Smaller HD is the OS drive, larger is the data. When I buy a new HD, it's always larger than my previous data drive. It then becomes the new data drive, and the old data drive becomes the new system drive. Ah, the circle of life.

[Xiahou]

This is the reason why it's good to always run two HDs, or at least two partitions. One for the OS, one for the data. Never install anything on the OS drive that you would care about losing. That way when you need to format, all you need to do is wipe the OS drive/partition and your data is untouched. I tend to leapfrog my HDs in this manner as I upgrade. Smaller HD is the OS drive, larger is the data. When I buy a new HD, it's always larger than my previous data drive. It then becomes the new data drive, and the old data drive becomes the new system drive. Ah, the circle of life.

Or do proper backups.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Or in this case, depending on the hard disk: dismantle the external drive enclosure, swap disks, reinstall Windows, done.