WD My Book Device not ready error

[bdl20]

I have a 4 TB WD my book external hard drive, I use it about once a week to save the recordings I make but recently it has stopped working. I plug it in and it takes a really long time to find the drive and then opening files takes forever too, sometime the folders won't even open and i will get an error the says "G:\Path" not accessible Device not ready even if I manage to get to a spot where I want to save a video when I try to transfer the file it transfers a bit and then it has an error where it says that the place I am trying to save to doesn't exist and then I can't explore my hard drive anymore. Is there a way to fix this or do I have to do something drastic like reformat?

 

[bdl20]

I ran that and as soon as I click run test I get a message that says "to many bad sectors" so I guess the hard drive is basically done for?

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hey there, bdl20!

I'm very sorry to hear about your WD My Book external. 🙁
If the error 'too many bad sectors' have occurred, I'd strongly recommend to check your warranty here: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=nJ8LDB
If your external device is still within the warranty period, get in touch with our tech support and send out a RMA request.
You should be able to get a replacement.
Here are the contacts: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=cRT1Wk
How to RMA: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=RQFDxY

Hope this helps you! Good luck!
SuperSoph_WD