My Passport Portable 4TB Just Stopped Working, But It's Not Dead

Nov 14, 2018
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Hey folks,

Out of nowhere today, I discovered that I was no longer able to access the contents on my WD 4TB USB 3.0 My Passport Portable External HD (MFR # WDBYFT0040BBL-WESN) that I purchased 3 months ago. I also noticed that when my drive is powered up, it now produces a low, soft buzzing sound, in two second intervals, alternating with the sound of (I believe) my disks trying to be engaged. They’re new sounds I’ve not heard before. The E: drive on my laptop where my HD used to show up no longer appears, however the light is on the drive itself and it’s attempting to connect with my laptop. The HD IS however recognized in Device Manager and the device status says “This Device is Working Properly.” The cables are fine (I’ve tried alternate ones) and the connection is secure. The drive simply seems stuck. And out of nowhere. Nothing has been dropped or bumped. I’m very cautious with how I handle this drive.

Like most folks, I’ve got a ton of info on my drive that I can’t afford to lose. Any idea what the problem is? Can it be fixed? I don’t want to jump to the conclusion that my only option is to pay a fortune to get the data recovered until I’ve exhausted all of my other options. Where should I go from here?

John
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
Being recognized in Device Manager may just mean that the enclosure is talking to the PC.
Says nothing about the actual drive functionality.

"a ton of info on my drive that I can’t afford to lose" means you have a backup of this, correct?
 
Nov 14, 2018
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I have a backup of most of the data in about 10 different places. I've also added important business files to the HD in the last two weeks which have not yet been backed up.

John



 
Nov 14, 2018
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If you've got any constructive suggestions (aside from a comprehensive back-up) I'm all ears. I've already concluded the new sounds being made are probably not something I should be happy about. I'm more interested in getting a sense as to what the problem potentially could be, whether it could be solved without shelling out a grand or more to a recovery outfit, and what diagnostics I could potentially run to better diagnose the problem.

John



 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
If it doesn't appear in Windows, your options at the consumer level are pretty much none.
And the more you mess with it, the worse it will probably get.

Recovery of a deleted file? Probably.
Recovery of a deleted partition? There are tools for that.
Accessing an apparently dead drive?....Not so much.

Possibly disassemble the enclosure and remove the actual drive.
You may be able to expose standard SATA ports.

However, a lot of these drives have encryption built into the enclosure, and removing the drive makes it unreadable, even with a fully working drive.
 
Nov 14, 2018
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I may be mistaken, but I was under the impression that I wouldn't be able to dismantle the enclosure and connect the drive to SATA, because the bridge is integrated onto the drive.
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator


That is also a possibility. Some externals have it that way.
Others will expose a standard SATA connection.

Your options are rapidly dwindling.
 

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