Help recovering data (1TB WD MyPassport Ultra)

[uuuaaaaaa]

I was copying some files to my external drive I thought that it had finished and unplugged the drive in the middle of the copying process and so it happens that windows tells me that I have to format the drive now... I have a backup of most things, however some are not... This happened in the middle of such process. I think this should be fixable, however before doing anything (which might make things even worse) I am asking for TPU's expertise!

EDIT: "chkdsk /f H:"(H: is the drive character) did the trick! (TestDisk also seems to be a very good tool, see 95Viper's post for the links)


Best regards,
u3a6

 

[P4-630]

@SuperSoph_WD

 

[FireFox]

Easy Drive Data Recovery,
Accidentally i have formated a 3TB HDD
All files found.

 

[uuuaaaaaa]

Easy Drive Data Recovery,
Accidentally i have formated a 3TB HDD
All files found.

Easy Drive Data Recovery cannot see the drive that I am having trouble with, however windows sees it, but it cannot acess it, it says it must be formated... :/

 

[droopyRO]

Did you try it on another PC/laptop ? and or other USB ports ?

 

[uuuaaaaaa]

Did you try it on another PC/laptop ? and or other USB ports ?

I tried it on other usb ports both (usb 2.0 and 3.0), I do not have a laptop or other pc. The drive was perfectly good before I unplugged it before finishing copying the files... :/

 

[95Viper]

Sounds like the MFT got corrupted: or, it did not get updated, since it never got to finish.

You may want to try TestDisk to repair the MFT.

 

[stinger608]

One word:
Recuva

https://www.piriform.com/recuva

You should be able to see it and if not you can reformat the drive and Recuva will still find all the files and folders.

One thing, though: DO NOT WRITE ANYTHING ON THE DRIVE!!!!!!!! Wait until you have run Recuva before writing anything to the drive.

If you have to, before formatting, make a DOS boot disk or USB drive. Plug the external drive in and then do a DOS boot.

 

[uuuaaaaaa]

One word:
Recuva

https://www.piriform.com/recuva

You should be able to see it and if not you can reformat the drive and Recuva will still find all the files and folders.

One thing, though: DO NOT WRITE ANYTHING ON THE DRIVE!!!!!!!! Wait until you have run Recuva before writing anything to the drive.

If you have to, before formatting, make a DOS boot disk or USB drive. Plug the external drive in and then do a DOS boot.

First thing I tried was Recuva, it could not see all files!

Sounds like the MFT got corrupted: or, it did not get updated, since it never got to finish.

You may want to try TestDisk to repair the MFT.

This sounds about right! Will try it now!

EDIT: Reading through the TestDisk (Very nice application!!) documentation it made me remember about checkdisk (it was quite usefull back in the floppy drive days )! It seems that "chkdsk /f H:" did the trick! Everything seems to be cool!!

Thank you guys!

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hey there & welcome, @uuuaaaaaa !

I'm truly glad you were able to successfully retrieve your files from the WD My Passport! However, you should ALWAYS make sure you keep multiple backups! Remember that 'backup' means having your data stored in at least TWO different locations. Moving them from one place to another is NOT a backup, unless there is a duplicate of the file on a different storage device/drive.

Be careful when using third-party data retrieving utilities, especially if you don't what might have caused this formatting prompt while copying your files. I'd still recommend you check the WD My Passport with our Data LifeGuard Diagnostic for Windows and make sure there's nothing wrong with its health or S.M.A.R.T. status (it should pass both the QUICK and the EXTENDED tests).

Keep us posted if you need further assistance with it!
Cheers,
SuperSoph_WD

P.S. Thanks for the tag, @P4-630

 

[uuuaaaaaa]

Hey there & welcome, @uuuaaaaaa !

I'm truly glad you were able to successfully retrieve your files from the WD My Passport! However, you should ALWAYS make sure you keep multiple backups! Remember that 'backup' means having your data stored in at least TWO different locations. Moving them from one place to another is NOT a backup, unless there is a duplicate of the file on a different storage device/drive.

Be careful when using third-party data retrieving utilities, especially if you don't what might have caused this formatting prompt while copying your files. I'd still recommend you check the WD My Passport with our Data LifeGuard Diagnostic for Windows and make sure there's nothing wrong with its health or S.M.A.R.T. status (it should pass both the QUICK and the EXTENDED tests).

Keep us posted if you need further assistance with it!
Cheers,
SuperSoph_WD

P.S. Thanks for the tag, @P4-630

Actually I have two 1TB WD MyPassport ultras which which have the same data as a backup! I will check the drive with the Data LifeGuard Diagnostic for Windows that you recommended and I will update this post to let you know how it turned out!

Thank you for your advice!

EDIT 1: Just run the quick test and it gave me the error in the image below. The other drive passes the quick test without any issues. I will let the extended test run overnight and will update this again.

EDIT 2: The driver also fails the extended test, it says that there are some bad sectors that may be repaired, however upon hitting the Repair option it fails and it is unable to repair the sectors (08 - Unable to repair bad sectors)

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

EDIT 1: Just run the quick test and it gave me the error in the image below. The other drive passes the quick test without any issues. I will let the extended test run overnight and will update this again. View attachment 78166

EDIT 2: The driver also fails the extended test, it says that there are some bad sectors that may be repaired, however upon hitting the Repair option it fails and it is unable to repair the sectors (08 - Unable to repair bad sectors)

Oh, I'm sorry to see this, @uuuaaaaaa I'm glad that you have the other WD My Passport backup drive, though! Now, I'd strongly recommend you check the warranty on the problematic WD My Passport and see if it's still covered. You should be able to get a replacement from our Customer Support, once you send your RMA request. You can get in touch with them either by phone or e-mail for further assistance.

Either way, I'd not trust any essential data with this drive, especially since it fails both tests. You should definitely consider replacing it. You're very lucky for successfully retrieving the data from it, though.

Hope this was helpful.
Best of luck and let me know if you have more questions!
SuperSoph_WD