[SOLVED] WD My Passport External Hard Drive Stopped during Copy, Now Stuck, Freezing Computer and can't Access!!! HELP

[Ransome]

I have a 1 TB WD My Passport HD. It had some important videos, images and content.
I was going to use to to transfer around 100 GB of video data (gameplay capture 4K 60fps 55mbps) - after around 30% it said "can't open file - can't read" or something like that. The the desktop went black, was frozen for a while, and finally the whole process crashes back to desktop.

Now I can't access my external HD at all. It is stuck, slowing down the PC and file explorer - and undetectable. The white light on the drive is blinking- but nothing happens.
Even ejecting the drive via the taskbar gets forzen.
If I open Disk Management it will open a frozen white window and will be stuck forever, not responding and slowing the PC.
If I open file explorer (this computer) - I see the drive as "local drive e:" - not as "my Passport" (which was its original name). If I click on it it will freeze up, not respond (load forever) and might say "drive is inaccessible" after a long time.
I can't access the drive no matter what. Tried 2 different cables, and 2 computers.
Tried Western Digital Data Lifeguard and it doesn't show up the HD up in the list, only on the lower one.
Tried chkdsk /f /r and SFC - but both fail to even start - again STUCK.Nothing happens. Failing to reach the HD probably. No process begins in CMD.

I'm sure there's a solution to this. This external HD was used maybe 5 times and was sitting in storage for years. It's practically brand new. I really need to recover the data and get the drive up and running again! Please help.

EDIT: I did manage to detect it for 5 minutes using WD software - I ran a Quick Test and it passed without issues- then it disappeared.

 

[S6xshot]

Oh man that sucks i was told by a friend to try put it in freezer to slow down the rpm spin but seems crazy...

 

[S6xshot]

All my kids new born pix are here I am pretty worried

 

[DSzymborski]

All my kids new born pix are here I am pretty worried

The solution is the same as before. First, try software recovery. Failing that, the only dependable option is a data recovery lab, which can be expensive depending on how difficult the task is. Sticking a drive in your freezer will only help you briefly if the hard drive broke in a very specific way. It's only worth doing if you've already tried software recovery and there's no possibility you'll ever pay for a data recovery lab; more often than not, freezing will damage the drive further.

There's no "official solution" for a broken hard drive that you failed to back up. Unfortunately, the only dependable way to recover data is to protect it before you lose it.

 

[USAFRet]

Oh man that sucks i was told by a friend to try put it in freezer to slow down the rpm spin but seems crazy...

Your friend has no idea what that does or how it might work.
"slow down the rpm spin" is not a thing.

He heard it from his buddy, who heard it from his dad, who heard it from a friends cousin, who read something like that on USENET 18 years ago, where some guy put an old drive in the freezer and it kinda sorta worked again for 5 minutes.

The first line in this thread speaks directly to your situation:

What is your backup situation at home?

What is your backup situation at home? And if you don't do that, why not? Every single day, I read multiple threads here of "How do I get my stuff back?" or "That drive had 5 years of photos of my kids!!" Be it a dead drive, dropped phone, virus, accidental deletion, formatting the wrong...

forums.tomshardware.com

Please take this as a heads up to start a good backup routine. Data that exists on one physical drive can be said to not exist at all.
And backups are done before you drop the drive.

 

[Ransome]

Didnt see the official fix

What Fix? Were you able to fix it, how? What HD model do you have?

 

[USAFRet]

What Fix? Were you able to fix it, how? What HD model do you have?

There is no single official fix.
Electronics can die in many and varied ways.
Spinning hard drives, being electro-mechanical devices, even more so.

At the consumer level, there is often exactly zero you can do to "fix it".
If the failed drive is under warranty, free replacement
If not still under warranty, $$ replacement.

This is when your backup routine comes into play.
Replace the drive, and recover your data from the backup.

But your data is your personal concern. Be proactive with that.

 

[james2346]

I have the exact same same problem here with my WD 4TTB External HDD. PLEASE tell me you found a solution

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

I have the exact same same problem here with my WD 4TTB External HDD. PLEASE tell me you found a solution

If you look at the date of the last reply above your post you'll see that it was posted over a year ago !
This means the thread is now dead -- finished with -- no longer active.

So please do the sensible thing and start your own thread.