WD Elements External HDD partitions

[Luis Dias]

Hi all,

I have a 3Tb WD Elements external disk. I decided to move it inside my desktop PC. However when I connect the disk to the motherboard via SATA cable it shows up in windows as 3 unformatted partitions. I guess this is due to the WD disk controller? How can I make the disk appear correctly in windows without having to back it up and format it?

 

[D_Know_WD]

Hi there Luis Dias,

As the HDD appears just fine when in the enclosure, it would be best to just transfer the data and format it afterwards. You've mentioned that you don't want to do that, but keep in mind that this seems to be the safest way.
WD Elements is not a model that has hardware encryption. So, it should appear just fine. It will not hurt to test the drive with WD's Data Lifeguard Diagnostic tool: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=Q41ux2

Apart from that, how does the HDD appears in Disk Management when attached internally? Does it show as RAW? In case it does, I guess you can try using some RAW data recovery software: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/280932-32-hard-drive-recovery

Again, the best thing to do is to just back up your data and format the HDD.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD