NEED HELP, WD External Hard Drive Corrupted and Unreadable

[Kurt Westerman]

I need help with my WD external hard drive. About two weeks ago it was accessible until last week when I tried to access it. Normally on windows I go to "start" then "my computer" then click on "my passport". Now everytime I do that process its called "Local Disk ( G: )", when I select it a error pops up stating
G:/ is not Accessible
The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable.

Trying to research how to get my files back I came across going to "start, all programs, accessories, right click on command prompt and select run as' when the command prompt comes up I have typed: chkdsk x: /f and chkdsk x: /r
After typing either one of those I get the message "Cannot open volume for direct access".

Can anyone help me retrieve these files? Everything on this is all of my personal pictures and all of my photography photographs from 2005 to now. I don't have a lot of many to spend but want to try everything I can to retrieve or access the drive again.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey Kurt. I'm sorry to hear you're having such issues with your drive. I'd suggest that you try the drive with another computer to see if the same thing happens. Other than that you could try taking ownership of the drive. Here's how to do that: http://www.preyerplanning.com/take-ownership-of-entire-hard-drive-in-windows-7.pdf
If that doesn't work, you could try changing the letter of the drive to see if this fixes the issue: How to change the drive letter assignment in Windows 8, 7, Vista, XP or 2000
Just click on the corresponding OS and follow the step-by-step instructions.

On the other hand, in case the issue is about something else, would you please post a screenshot of what you see in Disk Management about the drive. You can use the "How to change the drive letter assignment" from above to see how to access Disk Management.

Hope that helps.
Boogieman_WD

 

[Kurt Westerman]

I have tried connecting it to two other computers and 5 other usb ports. I get the same message ever time. i just tried taking ownership and received an error message saying: (The name 'G:/' specified in the Target box is not valid. Make sure the path and file name are correct). That message pops up after a click the security tab. Fallowing the steps for changing the drive name is not working either.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Just something I though I should ask - when you tried the chkdsk command, did you change "x:" with "g:" (which is the drive's letter you wish to check)? If not I'd recommend that you try again and this time write the following chkdsk g: /x /f /r (assuming the drive has the letter G)

Please let me know what happens after that.

 

[Kurt Westerman]

Ok, when I try typing CHKDSK G: /f /r /x. It gives me this message everytime... "The type of the file system is NTFS. Unable to determine volume version and state. CHKDSK aborted."

 

[Boogieman_WD]

You could try doing this on startup. If you restart the computer try booting to safe mode with command prompt and try again without the /x switch, jsut type in chkdsk g: /f /r
Follow the steps in method 2 from this article: http://www.wikihow.com/Run-a-Chkdsk-Function