Do I have a serious problem with my hard drive?

So I recently bought an external hard drive for the Ps4 and have always been very careful not to disconnect it. But a few days ago I noticed that the cable had a loose connection and that the hard drive was often disconnected. Now the hard drive is no longer recognized by my ps4. Can someone help me or are all the data on the hard drive gone? And besides, when I connect the hard drive to the ps4, the light on the hard drive flashes but it is still not recognized

Try connecting the hard drive to another device

I did. But what now?

Is the hard drive recognized there?

Yes, so on my pc, the hard drive is displayed at the bottom right

Then there's probably something wrong with the interface on the PS4, just browse to the hard drive and copy all the data to your PC

I can only select "eject" from my PC

Can you possibly send a picture? From the position as if you were browsing files

If the cable is loose, replace the cable. That has little to do with the hard drive. Then see if the hard drive is recognized properly. If it is no longer recognized by another device, the hard drive has been damaged. Then it gets difficult. But if it is recognized, etc. Then everything is fine.

Thanks for the answer

Well, the hard drive is shown in the lower right part of my screen, but not when I click on this data explorer that is in the lower left. And as I said when I click on the hard drive at the bottom right, only "eject" is displayed

And is it still bad if I disconnect the hard drive? So the light on the hard drive is on, but the hard drive is not recognized on my ps4

I would connect it to a PC. The problem with the PS4 is that it tries to read data. But if the data is all shot by the Wakler, then the PS4 can read as much as it wants. Then nothing is recognized anymore. In general, you want to find out first whether the hard drive is still working. And you can't seem to be able to do that at the moment. Therefore: hang it on a PC and see what happens. From then on it gets a bit more complicated, which is related to the data format. That is too much to write and explain. At least for me. Better to ask someone with the appropriate expertise and technology. E.g. The retailer from whom you bought the hard drive. Or a friend.

The hard drive has now been recognized by the ps4, but it says that all data on the hard drive must be deleted in order to use the hard drive as extended storage. Does that mean that I have to play the games that were on the hard drive again because the data will be deleted?

The one with the "Delete extended memory" is a standard setting on the PC. But you don't want that. So don't delete it. As I said: from here on it's more complicated. In general, the hard drive seems to be fine. Only the data may be hacked up. For me, however, this is the end, because that is a matter for a professional. Therefore: ask a specialist.

Companies have e.g. Often a similar problem. And they pay tens of thousands of euro for data recovery. There are different ways to save data. But that's something for a professional. So someone who is very knowledgeable and / or has the technology and programs.

I didn't mean on the pc but on the ps4. So the hard drive was recognized by the ps4 and the ps4 said to delete the data

You can imagine it like this: the loose contact shattered the data. You can also save this data. But that is an incredible effort. If the PS4 can read the hard drive, then for the German PS4 there's now a Chinese person in the hard drive who is uttering something incomprehensible. The PS4 asks you now: should I kill this Chinese man and throw him out so that space can be freed up on the hard drive? If you say yes, the data is gone. If you say no, you still have the option of what to save. But that is very difficult.

But for example Read Dead Redemption 2. I have the data in ps Plus online storage and in the external hard drive. If I now delete read Dead redemption 2 and download it again, could I play it or have I misunderstood something? Because the data is also in the online memory. So theoretically I couldn't make any loss of progress if the data is in the online storage and I free up the external hard drive