Need help in fixing a WD My Passport 2TB External drive

[Pr3di]

Hello guys,

Yesterday I wanted to get my SSD from my home PC (Win 7) to work for a project, so I decided to create a fresh backup of my C: drive.
When trying to back-up, I got a message to check the disk for errors, as it was not allowing the backup to run.

I did this, and that`s when the problems started:

- Whenever I connect the WD to the computer, I hear the new hardware sound, and the light on it is blinking and I can hear it spinning.
- It is only visible in Device manager, not in Disk Management, or Computer.
- If I uninstall and remove the drive in Device Manager (reboot included), after boot-up I can see only a letter in Computer, but not able to open it, or check properties, format or anything else. Also, if I try to run the Disk Management, it just freezes, and doesn`t display any o the other drives.
- At the same time, if I can "see" the disk in Computer, almost everyting crashes, browser freezes, and every application that is working stops.
- I tried on a separate laptop, and both USB 3.0 and 2.0 ports.
- Several recovery/repair tools (including WD) were installed, but none of them can see the drive to check/repair it.
- All WD softare was uninstalled, to try just with what Windows is installing.

Nothing works, and I really want to save some of the data on this drive.
The cable was not bent ( I don`t have another one to test), and the drive was not dropped or hit in any way.

I was able to use the drive just fine until the moment I did that check-up.

Please let me know if you have any other troubleshooting I could try, or if you ever heard of similar situations.

All help is apreciated!

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

If you can extract the actual hard drive from the WD enclosure, you can buy a third-party enclosure for it, any brand enclosure will do as long as it's for 2.5 inch SATA drives and supports 2TB

 

[faalin]

If you can extract the actual hard drive from the WD enclosure, you can buy a third-party enclosure for it, any brand enclosure will do as long as it's for 2.5 inch SATA drives and supports 2TB

This is not always true with WD drives now a days.


here is a picture of 3 different WD drives I have run across over the past year all out of external drives. The one on the left being out of a passport. WD is now changing the PCB board on them so you cant take them out of the case and plug them into an external caddy or right into a desktop

 

[Pr3di]

I have the one with the connecter as on the left side.

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

I'm well aware of the non-standard connectors that WD (and Seagate) are now using on their external hard drives as I've encountered it myself on a Seagate, but I was rather hoping the OP wouldn't encounter that problem.

I guess that's another good reason to avoid ready-built externals and instead make your own with a standard internal drive and a third-party enclosure or docking station. I may go down that route myself in future when my WD externals fail. In fact I might not even wait until that happens.

 

[Pr3di]

Phillip, I think you`re better off like this, having two back-ups if possible.

Before sending my WD for warranty I also tried accesing it with Parted Magic (Linux based to my understanding) and it was only visible at some points, but never was I able to actually access it`s content.

I`ll look in to these self-made externals and build one myself in the future.

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

I always keep my data backed up on four external hard drives. I've been doing that for the last 15 years.

When one of those drives fail, I replace it as soon as possible and copy all data to it from one of the other drives. So I always have my data safely stored on at least 3 separate drives at any one time.