WD 1TB USB Passport shows SmartWare partition, not main partition

[Christopher Hudson]

Win 7 - Drive letter for main partition does not show. Small UDF Smartware partion does show with its own letter. Disk Management says 'drive not initialized' and gives choice of MBR and something else.

Drive should not be physically failed because I see the UDF partition (right?)

Do I let it initialize - or will that wipe the main partition contents?

If not, what do you suggest to recover the main partition?
Thanks for your help..
Chris

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey Christopher. I'm sorry to hear you're having trouble with your drive. First of all, if the data is important to you - please do not initialize the drive, because you'll lose the files you have on it. Do you remember anything weird or out of the ordinary happening before the drive's partition got corrupted, e.g. unusual noise, or you doing something? Other than that if the drive is shown as not initialized, this would make it very hard to recover the data by normal means, because most data recovery programs probably won't be able to recognize it. You could still try some of the data recovery options listed in this thread here: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-1644496/lost-data-recovery.html
And before that you could try opening the drive with Linux Live USB/CD to see if it's recognized properly and if you can get your data this way.

Hope that helps.
Boogieman_WD