Western Digital external hard disk not initialized

[Ronald McDolan]

I had this drive for a few years now and I tried to store data in it recently but Computer(windows8) doesnt show the drive. I checked at disk management and saw that it is not initialized and fully unallocated. I do not need the old data in the disk anymore and was wondering if there is a way to fix the drive. Much appreciated. Part name: Western Digital WDBAAA3200ABK - My Passport

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/292378-32-external-hard-drive-device-manager-initialize

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/280186-32-external-hard-drive-showing-initialized

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Welcome to the community, Ronald McDolan!

I'm sorry to hear about your issues with the WD My Passport.
Have you tried the drive on another computer or using a different USB cable?
Since the data is not important, I'd suggest to write zeros on the entire drive using the Data LifeGuard tool:
http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1211
Hopefully afterwards you will be able to access the external HDD.
If it still doesn't help and you get a message "The media is write protected." This MIGHT happen because WD My Passport is hardware encrypted and I wouldn't risk trying to resolve the issue by myself.
I'd suggest to contact our tech support for further assistance on the troubleshooting with the encryption:
http://support.wdc.com/contact/contact.asp?lang=en

Hope this helped.
SuperSoph_WD

 

[Ronald McDolan]

Welcome to the community, Ronald McDolan!

I'm sorry to hear about your issues with the WD My Passport.
Have you tried the drive on another computer or using a different USB cable?
Since the data is not important, I'd suggest to write zeros on the entire drive using the Data LifeGuard tool:
http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1211
Hopefully afterwards you will be able to access the external HDD.
If it still doesn't help and you get a message "The media is write protected." This MIGHT happen because WD My Passport is hardware encrypted and I wouldn't risk trying to resolve the issue by myself.
I'd suggest to contact our tech support for further assistance on the troubleshooting with the encryption:
http://support.wdc.com/contact/contact.asp?lang=en

Hope this helped.
SuperSoph_WD

Sorry for the late reply I was outstationed for a week. I tried the lifeguard but it says Delete Partitions Error. Any other suggestions?
Edit: I also realized that the SMART status is Not Available for the my passport.

 

[Ronald McDolan]

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/292378-32-external-hard-drive-device-manager-initialize

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/280186-32-external-hard-drive-showing-initialized

I tried the magic partition thing from the answers but It failed too. I think it's because the drive is write protected. Any suggestions?

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Sorry for the late reply I was outstationed for a week. I tried the lifeguard but it says Delete Partitions Error. Any other suggestions?
Edit: I also realized that the SMART status is Not Available for the my passport.

I tried the magic partition thing from the answers but It failed too. I think it's because the drive is write protected. Any suggestions?

Hi again, Ronald McDolan!

I'm sorry to say this, but my guess is that your Passport has failed.
If it appears in the Disk Management and has a drive letter to it, I'd suggest to run Windows' check disk using Command Prompt (cmd)
Run it as administrator and type chkdsk x: /r (where x is the drive letter assigned to your external HDD)
This might take a while because it finds and fixes bad sectors and recovers readable data on the drive.
Did you try to get the drive recognized with another computer though and format it there?

The unavailable SMART status may be because the enclosure or some piece of hardware on My Passport has failed and doesn't allow the software to communicate with the HDD, thus cannot read the SMART data.

My next recommendation would be to contact our tech support for further assistance.
They should be able to help you more, you can contact them by phone or e-mail:
http://support.wdc.com/contact/contact.asp?lang=en

Hope this helped! Good luck!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[Ronald McDolan]

Sorry for the late reply I was outstationed for a week. I tried the lifeguard but it says Delete Partitions Error. Any other suggestions?
Edit: I also realized that the SMART status is Not Available for the my passport.

I tried the magic partition thing from the answers but It failed too. I think it's because the drive is write protected. Any suggestions?

Hi again, Ronald McDolan!

I'm sorry to say this, but my guess is that your Passport has failed.
If it appears in the Disk Management and has a drive letter to it, I'd suggest to run Windows' check disk using Command Prompt (cmd)
Run it as administrator and type chkdsk x: /r (where x is the drive letter assigned to your external HDD)
This might take a while because it finds and fixes bad sectors and recovers readable data on the drive.
Did you try to get the drive recognized with another computer though and format it there?

The unavailable SMART status may be because the enclosure or some piece of hardware on My Passport has failed and doesn't allow the software to communicate with the HDD, thus cannot read the SMART data.

My next recommendation would be to contact our tech support for further assistance.
They should be able to help you more, you can contact them by phone or e-mail:
http://support.wdc.com/contact/contact.asp?lang=en

Hope this helped! Good luck!
SuperSoph_WD

Well if I cant really fix it I guess I'll get a new one soon. Thanks a bunch