External Hard Drive not Initializing

[Zell34]

I am having issues with my external hard drive that I have been using for about 4 months now. Yesterday it just stopped showing up in My Computer. I checked my computer management, and at first it was showing up in the Devise Management but not Disk Management. After leaving it plugged in for half an hour or so while I was googling up a storm it finally showed up in Disk Management, but it is "Not Initialized" and when I try to do anything with it it says that "The devise is not ready".
It also seems like it is showing up as "Seagate BUP BK SCSI Disk Device".
Things I have tried in no particular order:
-Tried initializing as both MBR and GPT.
-It does not show up in Seagate's tool.
-It shows up in Diskpart as a disk (sometimes), but not as a volume so I cannot initialize it from there.
-Restarted everything.
-Plugged it into another computer, nothing.
-Swapped all of the cables.
-Swapped the port it was plugged into.
-Took the drive out of it's enclosure and popped it into an HDD port. The computer saw the port but not the drive.
-Slammed my head against the wall and did the laundry for all the good the past 48 hours of trial and error have been. I know I missed a few things I did, but at this point those are the major ones I can remember.
If anyone has any ideas of things I could try I would appreciate it greatly, even if it is just a temporary solution so that I can recover the files. Thank you, and good night.

 

[sirstinky]

I'd run some kind of a disk utility. Seagate has the Seatools thing (if you haven't tried it already) that works well to find bad sectors and diagnose a disk that's not mounting or initializing. You might try a Windows check disk too, but I've found the Seagate utility works real good. If all else has failed, it sounds like either something on the PCB has failed or the disk is dying a slow death.

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Welcome to the community, Zell34!

Good job with the troubleshooting so far! Unfortunately, taking the HDD out of the enclosure voids the warranty on the product, so even if it's covered, I'm afraid you won't be able to RMA it.
If the HDD shows as 'Not Initialized', then it seems like you have lost the file system. I'd suggest you try uninstalling & reinstalling the external drive as a device in Device Manager. Another important thing you should do is check up on the health and SMART status as it was already suggested, using the HDD manufacturer's brand-specific diagnostic tool. In case you cannot find it, you can refer to these third-party testing tool suggestions.

Keep in mind that your best bet on getting the files back is the assistance of a professional data recovery company. Any attempts by yourself to do that are rather risky and potentially dangerous for your data, especially when the damage on the HDD is unknown just yet.

Keep us posted with the SMART results and troubleshooting steps.
SuperSoph_WD