WD My Passport 500GB is not working

[Faizan Butt]

WD My Passport 500 GB is not working. I am using it since one year. It was working very nicly. But since 4-5 days when i plug it in USB port it start automattically installing basic software then show nothing. When i go to Device Manager option there it showes the drive with yellow mark and showes that drive software is not working. please help.

 

[unknownofprob]

on start search "format"

There should be something in the list called "create and format hard disk partitions"

Open that and your drive should be there, then right click on it and click format, as the contents of the drive have probably become corrupt and anything on there will now be gone.

 

[bambiboom]

Faizan Butt,

I have a WD 320GB Passport that has been extremely unreliable, but for me it the problems began very early on- perhaps the first two months. There are three partitions and sometimes the Windows Explorer doesn't recognize any partition and other times one , two, or all. It works, then doesn't or partly works, which to me is about the most dangerous form of untrustworthy behavior. I have had such bad luck with the Passport- and have seen many, many posts in many, many forums with the same problem- that I feel I just can't trust it.

But, before reformatting the drive and erasing everything, I believe it is worth trying methods to recover the files. >

1> What I've noticed is that this Passport is more reliable on one USB port of my 2008 Dell Precision and in general, the chances of it working increase the closer the port is to the motherboard. Yes, it doesn't make a lot of sense, but that seems to be the case and after I discovered this by trying it, found other posts that said the same. I thought it may be that the front ports have been plugged and unplugged so often that the connector- the socket- becomes worn and makes an unreliable connection, whereas the rear ports are not often changed.

2> I assume that the Passport contains a standard 2.5" notebook drive in an enclosure with a board that converts the signal suitable to USB use. If you're adventurous, you might consider taking the drive out of the enclosure and, and if it has the standard data and power connections, connect it directly to an SATA port in the computer. Be careful with the placement so it doesn't fall. If this works, you can transfer the data to an internal HD on your system.

2A> If the drive works reliably with this connection, there are 3.5" to 2.5" drive adapters and the drive can be installed it as an additional drive in the system.

3> Another method that preserves the portability would be to buy a 2.5" USB drive enclosure and reinstall the drive in it. It would seem to increase the chances of working- to look for one with better heat dissipation as it occurred to me that these things are packed into very close-fitting enclosures without any apparent provision for cooling.

An alternative for the future >

I have a 5-year old Seagate 160GB 3.5" USB 2.0 drive that has never failed once- completely reliable on four systems. it seems it may last forever as I only run it about a half hour per week- it is not permanently running.

Because the old Seagate 3.5 external drive always worked, a couple of months ago when I bought a new HP z420 wwith USB 3.0, I bought a Star Tech 3.5" USB 3.0 drive enclosure with a power switch and switchable cooling fan (about $38) and installed a Seagate Baracuda 500GB. This runs quietly, stays cool and so far has had no problems. It is quite nicely made too- black Aluminum and blue LED's and sits vertically and made to look like a book.. The 160GB drive had 15-25MB/s transfer rates and the Startech being USB 3.0 runs at 75-130MB/s. Of course, the 3.5 enclosure requires a plug-in power adapter in addition to the USB connection for data, and is much larger to carry around, but is worth the extra fuss. I use this to backup by only switching the USB cable from the old Dell and the new HP. See >

http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-3-5in-SuperSpeed-Drive-Enclosure/dp/B003F5NS9W/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1392450731&sr=8-1&keywords=star+tech+3.5%22+drive+enclosure

If I need portability, I use a 16GB Adata USB 3 flash drive.

I wish you good luck with this problem. An unreliable back up drive is worse than no back up drive as it is a false security. The idea of losing backup data is very worrisome.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

 

[Faizan Butt]

MY HARD DRIVE IS SOUNDING LIKE TICK TICK......................
MY I.T. EXPERT TOLD ME THAT IT HAS BEEN DAMAGED INSIDE. NOTHING CAN BE RECOVERED AND NOTHING CAN BE DONE.

ALSO TELL ME HOW CAN I GET MY DATA RECOVER. ITS SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE BECAUSE WHEN I PLUG IT IN MY PC. IT JUST SOUNDS BUT SHOWS NOTHING IN THE DISPLAY.
PLEASE ADVISE ANY SOLUTION TO GET MY DATA BACK FROM THIS HARD DRIVE.

Faizan Butt,

I have a WD 320GB Passport that has been extremely unreliable, but for me it the problems began very early on- perhaps the first two months. There are three partitions and sometimes the Windows Explorer doesn't recognize any partition and other times one , two, or all. It works, then doesn't or partly works, which to me is about the most dangerous form of untrustworthy behavior. I have had such bad luck with the Passport- and have seen many, many posts in many, many forums with the same problem- that I feel I just can't trust it.

But, before reformatting the drive and erasing everything, I believe it is worth trying methods to recover the files. >

1> What I've noticed is that this Passport is more reliable on one USB port of my 2008 Dell Precision and in general, the chances of it working increase the closer the port is to the motherboard. Yes, it doesn't make a lot of sense, but that seems to be the case and after I discovered this by trying it, found other posts that said the same. I thought it may be that the front ports have been plugged and unplugged so often that the connector- the socket- becomes worn and makes an unreliable connection, whereas the rear ports are not often changed.

2> I assume that the Passport contains a standard 2.5" notebook drive in an enclosure with a board that converts the signal suitable to USB use. If you're adventurous, you might consider taking the drive out of the enclosure and, and if it has the standard data and power connections, connect it directly to an SATA port in the computer. Be careful with the placement so it doesn't fall. If this works, you can transfer the data to an internal HD on your system.

2A> If the drive works reliably with this connection, there are 3.5" to 2.5" drive adapters and the drive can be installed it as an additional drive in the system.

3> Another method that preserves the portability would be to buy a 2.5" USB drive enclosure and reinstall the drive in it. It would seem to increase the chances of working- to look for one with better heat dissipation as it occurred to me that these things are packed into very close-fitting enclosures without any apparent provision for cooling.

An alternative for the future >

I have a 5-year old Seagate 160GB 3.5" USB 2.0 drive that has never failed once- completely reliable on four systems. it seems it may last forever as I only run it about a half hour per week- it is not permanently running.

Because the old Seagate 3.5 external drive always worked, a couple of months ago when I bought a new HP z420 wwith USB 3.0, I bought a Star Tech 3.5" USB 3.0 drive enclosure with a power switch and switchable cooling fan (about $38) and installed a Seagate Baracuda 500GB. This runs quietly, stays cool and so far has had no problems. It is quite nicely made too- black Aluminum and blue LED's and sits vertically and made to look like a book.. The 160GB drive had 15-25MB/s transfer rates and the Startech being USB 3.0 runs at 75-130MB/s. Of course, the 3.5 enclosure requires a plug-in power adapter in addition to the USB connection for data, and is much larger to carry around, but is worth the extra fuss. I use this to backup by only switching the USB cable from the old Dell and the new HP. See >

http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-3-5in-SuperSpeed-Drive-Enclosure/dp/B003F5NS9W/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1392450731&sr=8-1&keywords=star+tech+3.5%22+drive+enclosure

If I need portability, I use a 16GB Adata USB 3 flash drive.

I wish you good luck with this problem. An unreliable back up drive is worse than no back up drive as it is a false security. The idea of losing backup data is very worrisome.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

 

[bambiboom]

MY HARD DRIVE IS SOUNDING LIKE TICK TICK......................
MY I.T. EXPERT TOLD ME THAT IT HAS BEEN DAMAGED INSIDE. NOTHING CAN BE RECOVERED AND NOTHING CAN BE DONE.

ALSO TELL ME HOW CAN I GET MY DATA RECOVER. ITS SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE BECAUSE WHEN I PLUG IT IN MY PC. IT JUST SOUNDS BUT SHOWS NOTHING IN THE DISPLAY.
PLEASE ADVISE ANY SOLUTION TO GET MY DATA BACK FROM THIS HARD DRIVE.


Faizan Butt,

There are many kinds of software recovery programs and it may worth a few minutes to try a free one or two on the off chance something could be recovered.

However, the "TICK TICK" sound suggests that the drive has been damaged mechanically. In that case, there several levels of recovery. In some cases, it may be that the circuit board controlling the actuator is replaced, or only the motor. The more extreme technique is to disassemble the drive in a clean room, remove the platter from your drive and place them into a new hard drive. This is because in the case of your drive, the motor that rotates the drive is not working, there is binding in the bearings, and/or the actuator arm that reads and writes the disk is damaged /not working. This means the read /write head can not scan over the platters to read nor write the data. If the repair or rebuilding of the data platters into a new drive is successful, the disk is often cloned to another drive.

This type of data recovery can be quite expensive> several hundred Dollars, depending on the amount of data recovered and the complexity of mechanical repair, parts, a clone drive, and so on. A friend of mine had to do the platter swapping on a large drive and the cost was nearly $2,000, but this was completely successful- and was more expensive as it was in Switzerland. A lot of people mention spending $500-800, but that is only anecdotal- I've never had to do this. If you do use this kind of service, ensure the documentation of the work is transparent- you know exactly what was done and that there is no likely-hood that any data recovered is stored or accessible to unknown persons in or out of the company.

I hope those with direct experience of this process will correct errors in my description.

I'm sorry you are having this problem. I have used computers since 1992 and having lost days of work through computer problems, I've been obsessive about multiple copies of everything- I have two external drives, two flash drives, and make DVD's often. Today I have a 500GB, 3.5" drive in an Aluminum enclosure (StarTech )with a cooling fan and I never move that drive to avoid damage. I also only run that drive to make back ups and so If I need to transport large files, I use a flash drive.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

 

[unknownofprob]

^^Basically what Bambiboom said, but you can google data recovery options, there are lots of ways.