WD Elements Ext HDD 1TB not responding. And hanging the explorer

[Smankusors]

Hello guys, I got the problem. I think my Ext HDD has been failed after 5 years....
But I'm curious about this situation, is there's any way to recover my lost photos?

Here is the situation :
- HDD is detected on Windows, but appears "Local Disk" with no capacity
- Disk Management and diskpart hang when I launch them.
- CrystalDiskInfo hang too
- WinDlg/DLGDIAG hang
- On Task Manager, it shows that my ext HDD with 100% active time, average response time < 1s, average read 300KB/s, write nothing, capacity 932 GB, formatted 932 GB
- When I unplug the ext HDD, everything back normal
- CrystalDiskInfo reports "Caution" health, which is Current Pending Sector Count and Uncorrectable Sector Count
- I'm not planning to use this drive anymore, but I want to recover as much as possible from this HDD

I haven't tried the Ubuntu yet, I might try it later

Thanks,
Smankusors

Btw, the "Maximize your chances of being answered." thingy is kind of annoying, it blocks my edit text >.<"
Heheh, now that I give everything on my situation, usually no one answered my question. That text is kind of invalid ;_;

 

[Shaun o]

If the elements drive is of the type where a usb cable for data is connected to it and it needs it`s own 12v power brick to the drive enclosure plugging into it for power.

Open up the enclosure of the elements external casing.

Inside you will find a bridge board that converts a 3.5" sata interfaced drive to a usb connector, a circuit board.

Remove the circuit board, and you are left with a Desktop hard drive with a Sata data cable and power connector.

Use a spare sata cable if you have one, open up any tower based pc and connect the drive to a free sata port of the motherboard and connect the power.

Power the system on and see if the drive shows in file explorer and the contents of the data can be read.

The most common fault with external drives is the bridge board from sata to a usb connection fails.
But the physical drive in fact still works fine in most scenarios Smankusors

If it does work connected to a sata port of the motherboard.

Then all you have to do is buy a new external drive casing, if you wish the rive to be portable again Smankusors ok.

 

[Smankusors]

If the elements drive is of the type where a usb cable for data is connected to it and it needs it`s own 12v power brick to the drive enclosure plugging into it for power.

Open up the enclosure of the elements external casing.

Inside you will find a bridge board that converts a 3.5" sata interfaced drive to a usb connector, a circuit board.

Remove the circuit board, and you are left with a Desktop hard drive with a Sata data cable and power connector.

Use a spare sata cable if you have one, open up any tower based pc and connect the drive to a free sata port of the motherboard and connect the power.

Power the system on and see if the drive shows in file explorer and the contents of the data can be read.

The most common fault with external drives is the bridge board from sata to a usb connection fails.
But the physical drive in fact still works fine in most scenarios Smankusors

If it does work connected to a sata port of the motherboard.

Then all you have to do is buy a new external drive casing, if you wish the rive to be portable again Smankusors ok.

I already plugged the power btw.
Damn I only have the HDD enclosure for 2.5'', well I will bought it or borrow from someone else ._.
I don't... have any desktop.... OK thanks I will try that ^_^

 

[D_Know_WD]

Hi there Smankusors,

That is really unpleasant.

There's a chance that it isn't the electronics that is causing that, but the bad sectors on the drive.(you got Caution mark on the SMART report associated with bad sectors)
As all the tools you are trying to use hang, then you can use some data recovery tool for DOS mode. You can give the Ubuntu Live CD approach a try: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/267999-32-recover-data-mode
Just boot up(don't install the OS) from a flash drive or a CD and see if the drive would be accessible.

I was about to suggest you to use a different USB cable. Yet, as you've already decided to place the drive in another enclosure, that will rule out a possible connection related cause.

If the data is really important, you can consider looking for some professional help. You can check WD's Data Recovery Partners out: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=GIxrZq

Apart from all this, you should really back up the data you can't afford to loose, even if you got the drive 5 days ago.(not 5 years)

Let us know how this goes,
D_Know_WD