External detected but can't access

[bunnybugs]

Hi again, bunnybugs!

Unfortunately, Code 10 is indicating that the drive is probably failing.
I'd suggest to plug My Passport on another computer and see how it will react there?
Using another USB cable is also a way to test if the drive will stop lagging.
If the same error message is shown in the Device Manager of the second PC as well, the drive has failed and needs to be replaced. So I'd encourage you to contact our tech support and RMA it, you should be able to get a replacement and end the headache of troubleshooting the drive.
http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/8
http://support.wdc.com/contact/contact.asp?lang=en
I'm truly sorry for the bad experience you've been having with the WD My Passport.

Hope I was able to help out though!
SuperSoph_WD

My brother tried it in his PC but he said not detected
i also tried using/plugging it in our TV which can read and which we used to watch movies
so my passport is already dead? D:

My Passport is inside a Nomad Case which was free when i bought it
i checked and found out that store warranty was only until Feb 2013
I am from the Philippines though
and i think i already lost my receipt of purchase D:

 

[Aquinus]

My Passport series are external drives incorporating a hardware encryption. Getting the drive out of the enclosure will make it impossible to access or use!

Is that always enabled or is it an option to enable? I personally would be disappointed if that's a permanently enabled feature as not everyone will want something like that and in cases like this, it makes data recovery next to impossible.

 

[rtwjunkie]

@SuperSoph_WD: Thanks for the explanation on the encryption. I always wondered what made a MyPassport different from say, an hdd that you place in an external enclosure.

Just one of those things I never bothered to investigate further.

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

My brother tried it in his PC but he said not detected
i also tried using/plugging it in our TV which can read and which we used to watch movies
so my passport is already dead? D:

My Passport is inside a Nomad Case which was free when i bought it
i checked and found out that store warranty was only until Feb 2013
I am from the Philippines though
and i think i already lost my receipt of purchase D:

Ok, I have good news and bad news for you, @bunnybugs!
The good news is that there is a slight chance that your Passport might not be hardware encrypted. This is something WD started using only recently on the My Passport series.
The bad news is that I cannot help you determine that.
However, this kind of information is available to our tech support. The best thing you can do is contact them either by phone or e-mail and let them know about your problem:
http://support.wdc.com/contact/contact.asp?lang=en
If you provide them with the model number (and/or serial number), they will be able to tell you if it is hardware encrypted or not. Also they should give you guidelines on how to proceed with your WD Passport.

I'm sorry, I couldn't be more useful! Hope I was able to help out, though!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Is that always enabled or is it an option to enable? I personally would be disappointed if that's a permanently enabled feature as not everyone will want something like that and in cases like this, it makes data recovery next to impossible.

True story, @Aquinus! It's close to impossible to retrieve data from such a drive.
Well, the only market where you can get an Unencrypted WD Passport is the Russian one, because they do not allow it.
For the rest of the world WD My Passport ships only with an incorporated encryption.
If you desire a WD portable without a hardware encryption, you can check out WD Elements. It's got almost the same specs as My Passport, but comes without the hardware and software features installed on it.

SuperSoph_WD

 

[bunnybugs]

Is there anyway to recover the files that i have in my External? or no other choice but to just re-download it?

 

[Aquinus]

Is there anyway to recover the files that i have in my External? or no other choice but to just re-download it?

If the controller on the enclosure failed, your out of luck. Even if the drive is okay, you wouldn't be able to decrypt thew data.

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hi again, @bunnybugs!

Unfortunately what @Aquinus said is true.
That's why you have to check with tech support to see if your drive is encrypted or not.

Good luck!

 

[McSteel]

I don't think it's the controller. This reeks of bad sectors that have appeared in the first few tracks of the disk, which led to partition table data corruption, and also $MFT and $Bitmap corruption.

If the enclosure's USB to SATA controller was bad, the drive wouldn't have been recognized at all by the system, much less the partition type being recognized by chkdsk and errors detected and partially fixed...

 

[Aquinus]

I don't think it's the controller. This reeks of bad sectors that have appeared in the first few tracks of the disk, which led to partition table data corruption, and also $MFT and $Bitmap corruption.

If the enclosure's USB to SATA controller was bad, the drive wouldn't have been recognized at all by the system, much less the partition type being recognized by chkdsk and errors detected and partially fixed...

This is why I'm inclined to think it's the controller.

My brother tried it in his PC but he said not detected

If he was getting cyclic redundancy check errors before it stopped working, that's also a good sign that it's the controller... at least from my personal experience with external WD drives where the controller is failing but the drive has not.

 

[McSteel]

I somehow missed the part about CRC errors... But they do sometimes crop up when there are bad sectors, if they happen to develop while the drive is being read-out.
As for the "not detected" part, that's a bit ambiguous, as sometimes a faulty partition isn't even shown as present (doesn't get assigned a drive letter until the OS knows it's size and position on the disk).

Still, if there are known problems with the controller used in those enclosures, I'm just wasting time writing this, and I apologize.

 

[Aquinus]

I somehow missed the part about CRC errors... But they do sometimes crop up when there are bad sectors, if they happen to develop while the drive is being read-out.
As for the "not detected" part, that's a bit ambiguous, as sometimes a faulty partition isn't even shown as present (doesn't get assigned a drive letter until the OS knows it's size and position on the disk).

Still, if there are known problems with the controller used in those enclosures, I'm just wasting time writing this, and I apologize.

You could be right, I'm just saying that the times WD external drives failed on me, it was usually the enclosure not the drive, but that is also my experience with older non-encrypted 3.5" external drives like the MyBook.