"chkdsk I: f/" Not working for me

[ROddi78]

My external hard drive (WD 1.5 TB) suddenly stopped working last week.

On my computer it no longer has the name I previously gave it and shows up as Local Disk (I. It doesn't let me open the folder icon that represents the drive.

It doesn't let me look at it in disk management.

After spending hours pouring over threads, I read about "chkdsk I: f/". I type this in command (running as administrator), and nothing happens. The cursor blinks under the prompt where I typed the command, and doesn't let me enter anything else.

Any advice? All the threads I have read where someone suggested chkdsk resulted in success for the poster, so I'm bummed I can't get it to even run.

 

[ex_bubblehead]

It's most likely that the hard drive has failed and chkdsk cannot identify either the drive or the filesystem, thus the hang.

 

[D_Know_WD]

Hi there ROddi78,

That is really unpleasant. 🙁

What is the model of the drive?

I believe you can start with something simple as just attaching the drive with a different USB cable, to a different computer.

Do you have some data stored on the drive?
In case the issue persists, you can run some data recovery tool on the drive and see whether you will be able to access it: http://pcsupport.about.com/od/filerecovery/tp/free-file-recovery-programs.htm
If you manage to retrieve your data, you can run both short and extended DLG tests on the drive: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=kBhrqO

If you can't really access the drive with software tools, you have a couple of options:
- Contact a data recovery company, if the data stored on the drive is really important. You can check WD's Data Recovery Partners out: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=uvDhHT
- If the drive is under warranty, you can contact the place you got it from and RMA it. You will not get your data in that case though.

Let me know how this goes,
D_Know_WD