PC unable to detect my Western Digital External Hard disk

[cokecheers]

My PC unable to detect my Western Digital External Hard disk after I plugged in the harddisk.

I can heard the sound when I plugged in via USB but unable to see the drive on My Computer.

I can see the harddisk under Device Management but was unable to initialize Disk. The error i got is "Data Error (cyclic redundancy check)".

I try to reterive my fies via the some Data recovery application but they either were not able to detetc my hard disk or was unable to open/process my harddisk.

I have many important files in the hard disk which i have not back up

Is there any way i can reterive my files?

 

[DataMedic]

First of all, is it a Passport or My Book drive? And if so, what size? Many of these are hardware encrypted and it could be locked out.

 

[Tom Tancredi]

Honestly how 'important' are these files? Are they worth $1000 or more? If so then you can send the drive to a Data Recovery service, where they will be in 'bunny suits' in a clean room, remove each platter of the drive and use a very expensive machine to reach each bit, then provide the data back on a set of DVDs. Depending on the type of data the price ranges from $1000 to $10K or more.

Otherwise you just learned the hard lesson, backup backup and backup again!

 

[DataMedic]

Honestly how 'important' are these files? Are they worth $1000 or more? If so then you can send the drive to a Data Recovery service, where they will be in 'bunny suits' in a clean room, remove each platter of the drive and use a very expensive machine to reach each bit, then provide the data back on a set of DVDs. Depending on the type of data the price ranges from $1000 to $10K or more.

Otherwise you just learned the hard lesson, backup backup and backup again!

I actually am one of those guys. (and FYI, we almost never remove the platters from the drives).

The price isn't always that high (unless it's a WD passport, in which case it usually is over $1000). Our rates for data recovery average about $600. You can actually see here what rate you can expect:
http://www.data-medics.com/-data-recovery-prices.html

Though I realize companies like Drive Savers still are charging thousands. (must be nice to have such a well known name).

 

[DataMedic]

Contrary to popular belief, there is no device in the world that can universally read a hard drive platter. Every model, submodel, and even individual drive writes data in a little different way. Data recovery always relies upon repairing the original hardware. That's why it's expensive, very labor intensive.

Though most ignorant IT guys still think they're getting ripped off, because we have some magic machine that can just extract the data from the platters in a few minutes. LOL

 

[fzabkar]

@DataMedic, let's be honest. Unless the drive has a head/media fault, most problems can be solved from behind a keyboard. In fact WD's drives have common firmware issues that have single-click solutions ... if you have the right software.

 

[Tom Tancredi]

Uhmm.. DataMedic, I was generalizing then trying to use the proper 'Engineering' lingua fraca. Just a general understanding "universally read a hard drive platter every model, submodel" will be accepted and worked on by the company, and they don't need to hunt for a specialized service provider just for that one specific drive, to know to ask ABC 123 when they want to get the work done, etc. "Techno gobbledeegook".

You should, as "one of those guys", understand the audience your speaking to, and this case maybe someone whom doesn't even know what a Bit is as compared to a Byte, or a B and a b make a big difference. So please don't diss with "ignorant IT guys", at least we have a clue and can speak "Technoese". LOL.