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External hard drive issue

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BlackHawk1

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Jul 18, 2010
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Hi! I have a Western Digital My Passport Ultra that was working one day and the next day it's not. I am running Windows 7 and I tried it on two different Windows 7 computers to no avail. I tried a cable from another drive to rule out a bad cable. What's odd is that the drive shows up under "Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media" but I can't see the drive or any of the files on the drive. I looked in "Disk Management" and it shows 931.48 GB Unallocated. I ran Hard Disk Sentinel and I'm attaching screenshots of that and Disk Management. I can't try and repair it with chkdsk because I don't know the drive letter? What can I do to try and access these important files? I would greatly appreciate some help! Thank you very much!

In Disk management it shows as "Disk 5 Unknown 931.48 GB Not Initialized (931.48 Unallocated)
 

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Somehow you deleted the partition. Hope nothing important was on it. If there was and you need to recover something disconnect the drive now.
 
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If you look in Hard Disk Sentinel, you'll see "There are 194 weak sectors on the disk surface" and drive health is 52 percent.

This HDD is dying as a result of factory defect OR physical damage. Backup important data if its still accessible and RMA if its still under warranty.
 
Regeneration said:
If you look in Hard Disk Sentinel, you'll see "There are 194 weak sectors on the disk surface" and drive health is 52 percent.

This HDD is dying as a result of factory defect OR physical damage. Backup important data if its still accessible and RMA if its still under warranty.
Click to expand...

Yes I saw that in Hard Disk Sentinel. However I can't access the drive or the files as I originally stated. As stated above...

What's odd is that the drive shows up under "Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media" but I can't see the drive or any of the files on the drive. In Disk management it shows as "Disk 5 Unknown 931.48 GB Not Initialized (931.48 Unallocated)

I really need to get access to the drive and files. That's what I'm trying to figure out. If anyone can help I would greatly appreciate it!
 
External HDDs use USB-to-SATA bridge chip and you'll continue to get "Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media" even if the drive is completely dead.

If you get the drive to "initialize" (Right click on it in "computer management"), you may be able to access some files, it's probably going to take hours. Then you'll be able to run "CHKDSK x: /f /r" on it, will take hours too, but might help recover some more files.

If it doesn't even "initialize" after numerous attempts, the only chance to recover data is in a special data recovery lab, and that's going to be VERY EXPENSIVE.
 
Regeneration said:
External HDDs use USB-to-SATA bridge chip and you'll continue to get "Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media" even if the drive is completely dead.

If you get the drive to "initialize" (Right click on it in "computer management"), you may be able to access some files, it's probably going to take hours. Then you'll be able to run "CHKDSK x: /f /r" on it, will take hours too, but might help recover some more files.

If it doesn't even "initialize" after numerous attempts, the only chance to recover data is in a special data recovery lab, and that's going to be VERY EXPENSIVE.
Click to expand...


Do you think the OP should crack the external enclosure to access the drive directly, in hopes of getting at the files? (warranty as a non issue at this point?)
 
Regeneration said:
External HDDs use USB-to-SATA bridge chip and you'll continue to get "Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media" even if the drive is completely dead.

If you get the drive to "initialize" (Right click on it in "computer management"), you may be able to access some files, it's probably going to take hours. Then you'll be able to run "CHKDSK x: /f /r" on it, will take hours too, but might help recover some more files.

If it doesn't even "initialize" after numerous attempts, the only chance to recover data is in a special data recovery lab, and that's going to be VERY EXPENSIVE.
Click to expand...

I wonder if I should tear the case apart and try to plug in to this that I have... https://www.amazon.com/ICY-DOCK-EZ-...005FN7DJI/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
 
jsfitz54 said:
Do you think the OP should crack the external enclosure to access the drive directly, in hopes of getting at the files. (warranty as a non issue at this point?)
Click to expand...


My passport ultra is a 2.5 inch external. If this is normal hdd with with sata port I would have ask to shuck the drive from its casing and try to have it being read from a dock. Unfortunately the wd ultra do not have a standard sata. Its usb to sata is build into the board of the hdd.


If hdd still spin well without any clicking sound? If so it is a good chance data can be recovered. My idea left is to try maybe buy totally new cable or a usb micro b cable like those for phones to see if that helps. Rather than using windows could plug the hdd in a linux pc or mac os. As I am typing this out now I somehow could get my hdd I thought was a lost cause to read on a mac os.
 
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No clicking sounds at all, nothing seems wrong and it wasn't dropped. I just don't understand it. I access it about once a month to make a backup. I believe it's this one...

WDBZFP0010BBK-01

www.hardwarebbq.com

WD My Passport Ultra 1TB WDBZFP0010BBK-01 USB 3.0 Drive Review » Hardware BBQ

IntroductionPackaging and SpecificationInitial ImpressionsAS SSD BenchmarkATTO BenchmarkCrystalDisk Mark BenchmarkHDTune Pro BenchmarkTransfer TestsConclusion WD introduced My Passport Ultra with…
www.hardwarebbq.com www.hardwarebbq.com

So is it unless to tear it apart because this model won't fit to the dock I have?
 
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BlackHawk1 said:
No clicking sounds at all, nothing seems wrong and it wasn't dropped. I just don't understand it. I access it about once a month to make a backup. I believe it's this one...



So is it unless to tear it apart because this model won't fit to the dock I have?
Click to expand...


Yes no point doing it as you cannot use a dock like shown here. WD stop making their 2.5 inch drive shuckable, though they make relaible drives it makes data recovery a whole lot harder. Try plugging your drive to linux os or mac os to see if they readable. Hdd failure can just happens mine was like too.

How to dismantle a Western Digital My Passport external USB 3.0 hard drive
 
As @MIRTAZAPINE already said, WD My Passport Ultra doesn't have regular SATA interface. Cracking the case will be useless.

I'm sorry to let you DOWN, @BlackHawk1 [pun intended], but if you can't even "initialize" the drive, data recovery lab is the only option.

If the data isn't "that important", check the receipt/invoice, maybe its still under warranty and can be replaced.
 
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Regeneration said:
As @MIRTAZAPINE already said, WD My Passport Ultra doesn't have regular SATA interface. Cracking the case will be useless.

I'm sorry to let you DOWN, @BlackHawk1 [pun intended], but if you can't even "initialize" the drive, data recovery lab is the only option.

If the data isn't "that important", check the receipt/invoice, maybe its still under warranty and can be replaced.
Click to expand...

I know what you are saying, but I don't want to give up LOL! There has to be some other things I could try? Hirens Boot Disk Utilities? Luckily the most important folder on there I do have another backup, but there's other stuff on it that I could really use. I remeber years ago sticking a bad drive in the freezer overnight (I heard it might work) and I got it working just long enough to recover files from a friends drive. Maybe luck, but I think the freezer trick worked. I wish I had a explanation as to why this drive went bad all of a sudden. I didn't drop it, nothing. This really sucks!
 
Bad sectors are like cancer. Starts with a single cell and you never notice it until its too late.

You can try to use some 3rd party HDD repair software to remap data away from these bad sectors. It will take hours if not days.
 
You still haven't explained how its unallocated. It's not because of a damaged sector
Maybe you should try WD software
 
If it's not under warranty take the hdd out of the enclosure, put it in you pc, try some data recovery software and then do a zero fill and format. If the number of weak sectors doesn't increase the drive could be ok for use, but don't put anything important on it.
 
Probably the only thing recoverable are the Neodymium magnets
that Drive is toast/kaput
 
hurakura said:
If it's not under warranty take the hdd out of the enclosure, put it in you pc, try some data recovery software and then do a zero fill and format. If the number of weak sectors doesn't increase the drive could be ok for use, but don't put anything important on it.
Click to expand...

Good luck with that. Won't help at all.

Clipboard02.jpg

USB output is soldered to the board.
 
nah, blue WD's. so fragile... they don't run good mounted in a laptop but what about as an external drive.. :roll:
 
BlackHawk1 said:
I know what you are saying, but I don't want to give up LOL! There has to be some other things I could try? Hirens Boot Disk Utilities? Luckily the most important folder on there I do have another backup, but there's other stuff on it that I could really use. I remeber years ago sticking a bad drive in the freezer overnight (I heard it might work) and I got it working just long enough to recover files from a friends drive. Maybe luck, but I think the freezer trick worked. I wish I had a explanation as to why this drive went bad all of a sudden. I didn't drop it, nothing. This really sucks!
Click to expand...

It might just be that Track 0 is damaged. You can try running a program like GetDataBack or Recuva. Recuva being free, I'd try that first. It might be able to scan the entire drive even with a damaged index/Track 0 and recover some files from the drive. But it's going to take a heck of a long time to scan the whole drive, if it can even recognized the drive.

The fact that it is showing up in Windows with at least the right size is a good sign that the entire drive isn't dead. It's just the formatting track that is f'd up.
 
You could try Diskpart in CMD and see what it says.
 
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