WD External Hard Drive I/O Error

rohit1991

Distinguished
Jun 10, 2012
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18,510
Hey Guys, I bought a WD Elements 500 GB external hard dist about 6 months ago, It was working fine till Day before yesterday when I copied some files to it and then I actually stopped paying attention and left it plugged in.
So today I noticed that it was actually not showing up in my computer!
I checked in Device manger its showing there as working properly, I checked properties it told me it was supposed to be initialized, I tried to initialize it in Diskmanagement and got this I/O error, the point is that its working, rotating, being recognized, just not showing up, any help??
 
Solution
Hello there rohit1991,

I am really sorry for the issues you are having with the WD Elements. You have done some nice troubleshooting though.

Usually the I/O(Input/Output) error is related to a bad USB cable or a bad USB port of the computer or the drive. Because of that, I would suggest you to try to connect the drive with a different cable and to a different port. If possible, you could try it on another computer as well.

If this does not work, I would suggest you to contact one of the WD's data recovery partners(link below). As you mentioned that the data on the drive is really important, keep in mind that when trying to retrieve the data by yourself may further damage the drive or the data on it.
Data recovery...

rohit1991

Distinguished
Jun 10, 2012
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18,510


Thanx for the suggestion dude, but I tried it numerous times it dint work, It is actually under warranty but I dont wanna get it exchanged as The data inside is too crucial, Is there a way around?

 
Hello there rohit1991,

I am really sorry for the issues you are having with the WD Elements. You have done some nice troubleshooting though.

Usually the I/O(Input/Output) error is related to a bad USB cable or a bad USB port of the computer or the drive. Because of that, I would suggest you to try to connect the drive with a different cable and to a different port. If possible, you could try it on another computer as well.

If this does not work, I would suggest you to contact one of the WD's data recovery partners(link below). As you mentioned that the data on the drive is really important, keep in mind that when trying to retrieve the data by yourself may further damage the drive or the data on it.
Data recovery: http://support.wdc.com/recovery/index.asp?lang=en

Hope this will help,
D_Know_WD
 
Solution

Denitz

Reputable
Jan 28, 2016
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4,510
I had the same problem with my WD HDE, turns out IT WAS the cable after all. From the outside the cable's looked already...well, distorted, not to mention its age. I tried reconnecting it using a data cable from my Nokia, works fine. So yeah, I guess the problem's mainly on the hardware.
 

Kevin_140

Commendable
May 7, 2016
1
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1,510