WD External HDD

[Arti Machama]

I have got a WD External Hard Drive and it has suddenly stopped reading. It is still recognised by my computer, however it will not open and comes up with error reading "The semaphoretimeout period has expired". I have got files on the HDD that I do not want to lose. Please Help!

 

[digitaldoc]

http://www.sevenforums.com/bsod-help-support/197480-error-0x80070079-semaphore-timeout-period-has-expired.html

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/c3fc9f5d-c073-4a9f-bb3d-b7bb8f893f78/error-0x80070079-the-semaphore-timeout-period-has-expired?forum=itprovistanetworking

Take a look at those 2 links. There are a number of causes of this error message. Make sure you defrag both your system's and the external hard drive. Also update your network drivers.

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hey there, Arti!

Sorry to hear about your WD External drive.
I'd suggest running the extended test on the HDD using the WD Diagnostics tool:
http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=NCNV3I

What @digitaldoc shared as links should help you out as well.

Another thing you can try to fix this issue is running chkdsk using Command prompt.
You need to run cmd as administrator and type the command: chkdsk x:/r (Where X is the drive letter assigned to your WD External)
You can check how to do that in details from the second option in this tutorial:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/433-disk-check.html

Good luck! Hope this helps you!
SuperSoph_WD