Dear JM,
You're actually getting a lot of very LAME advise---no offense posters, advise here CAN at times be good.
Critical issue to understand with WD MyBook externals is that they have 2/TWO controller Cards. A PCB card which is more or less typical of any platter HDD but then a another controller that interfaces between the regular PCB and your USB connection. That card not only makes these drives USB3 capable, it also greatly facilitates being able to format these 3TB drives to run on an OS like XP 32--which normally doesn't recognize 3TB drives.
That's all well and good but the second controller comes with a HUGE Gotcha. It encrypts EVERY THING written to these MyBooks. I've about 9 of the 3TB USB3 externals and I've run into read/write problems from time-to-time. I can be pretty HANDS on and one solution that's worked for me is to replace the "External "2nd controller card. You HAVE to order online from somewhere like EBAY because WD WILL NOT SELL YOU ONE. It MUST be the exact controller card for you drive's PCB controller. Every possible number (serial model rev version etc) has to be an exact match. I've been able to recover 3 seemingly DEAD WD MyBooks each for about $30-40 depending on who's got what cards for sale. Hong Kong IS supplying a lot of these (as well as PCB cards for most brands of drives--and AGAIN none of the manufacturers, Seagate (which has acquired nearly EVERYONE) Western Digital, Toshiba--NONE of them will sell you a PCB card--or any other "part" for that matter. NOR DO ANY of the Manufacturers trouble themselves with any kind of data retrieval. NOT IN THEIR BUSINESS PLAN so don't even expect sensible advice from their techies---they have none (because they have ZERO experience) whee data retrieval is concerned. .
MANY times it IS one of the MyBooks 2 PCB cards that malfunction--95% of those times it will be what I call the External PCB which piggy backs off the drives regular PCB. Occasionally It's even the read/write heads locking or parking and NOT BUDGING---and sometimes they will inexplicably unpack themselves and you can be back in business. So do keep trying--much better if there is NOT huge urgency and you can just every now and then give it another shot.
YES, I will confess to having stuck a clicking clacking HDD (will not even identify itself to the OS) HDD in the freezer and gotten it to work--but don't count on that. That ONLY really works for an "illegally parked head" If you have even a minor true hardware failure almost NOTHING will work with these 2 controller card, encrypted WD MY Books. HDD Regenerator, which can be fairly adept reading a drive sector-by-sector and continually trying to read a "bad sector" until it finally does get enough right 1&0's to "refresh" the sector with the correct data. In the best of scenarios that really only buys you enough good reads to successfully recovery your data (if you do it immediately)==for MyBooks HDD Regen usually doesn't fair very well. .Nor does Spinrite.
Similarly you will have much LESS luck trying to recover accidentally formatted M-Books or My Biooks that have lost their MBR etc, using Recurva, GetDataBack, R=Studio and any other number of very good, sector-by-sector recovery Apps. IF it's a very simple file-integrity issue you might be able to regenerate lost data but MY BOOK, with it's double PCB's and it's every bit encrypted. is NOT a great candidate normally. If these APPS have to parse through and track down an entire array of pointers to regen a file.--even though the data may actually still be "in there", it's often simply beyond the scope of even the best recovery programs to successful deal with My Books.
The advise to send your HDD for professional forensics is one of the most brain-dead suggestions I've seen offered up here. I assume folk have NO CLUE AT ALL just how much it cost to recover date from a 3TB multi-platter drive by way of a Professional Service. There is almost NO Ordinary user on the planet that is going to be able to, or want to, justify THAT expense.
TO THAT POINT: These inexpensive 3TB drives FINALLY make it feasible to backup Windows fully and regularly--something we haven't been able to do since Windows 95. You also need to back up your externals to OTHER externals (use something like Acronis True Image) if you're storing critical data on them. They just aren't that expensive. If your Christmas photos from 2012 are have a couple of grand worth of sentimental value to you--then spend another $120 bucks to backup your externals. You ARE looking at the price of about 16 3tb externals if you're thinking of paying for professional recovery service.
Back in the day, I would open a 350 Gig HDD and replace read-write heads, physically unfreeze a platters--mount platters in an identical but WORKING HDD, to spin them up and read them again. With these HIGH capacity drives that's really not a viable option, for me, any longer. It's a much more intricate and difficult undertaking now--and the Professional recovery services (which AlWAYS charged an arm and a leg even for single platter forensics--they want both arms and your first born now (well between $600 to $1200--even to "evaluate and estimate" your final $2300 to $3000 tab.
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