MyBook crapped out - couple questions.

[xazraelx]

Well, before we get into how important it is to BACKUP your files, I'm going to go ahead and preface this by saying this WAS my backup. I have a 500gig MyBook WD5000KS, and it's 97% full. Some of the data I have in various places, some I don't have anymore. Namely, some of my mother's files. I was fixing her old computer, had backed up several files of hers, and just got her the computer back, and well...I can't access the files anymore.

Here's the situation.

Plug it in, plug in the firewire cable (yes, I tried it with a USB cable also), it automatically turns on. The WD button manager recognizes the drive, states that it is 97% full. Cool. Now, I open my computer - open my drive. It opens fine. No problems. Browse to her section (yes, I can open folders, etc). And, select it, ctrl c, click on desktop, ctrl v. My computer, which is not slow by any means, goes into super-slugg mode. And I mean, we're talking ME on a crap computer filled with trojans/virii here. Well, after about two minutes, I get an error. Cannot write ....(random...hash code?...wasn't the path directory). Okay, that's strange. Well, I go to copy a different file. Does somewhat of the same thing, with the end result the same. Okay. Now, I browse to a section I know I have, certainly don't need it anymore, and try to delete it. That doesn't work. Says it doesn't have access to those files.

Crap.

Well, I go to WD site, download their diagnostic tool, run the quick scan, drive passed. No errors whatsoever. I'm currently running the four hour full scan, and will report what that says when it finishes.

So I'm looking for advice - what do I need to do now. Is there any way I can get my data back (no, I'm not paying $900 dollars for 490ish gigs of stuff - I will pay anywhere under a 100 though). If it's software, that would be terrific. I have a feeling bad sectors are in order, but is there a way to fix that? My knowledge of bad sectors is limited to knowing they happen, but is there any way to "repair" the data? Recover it, whatever. I have plenty of extra drives I can "relocate" the data to, I just need a program to get the data off.

Oh, and to add, I did test it on my girlfriends laptop, to the same extent. I also tried to run a defrag analyze on her laptop, and it wouldn't run (couldn't analyze the drive).

ANY advice would be great...TPU is the place I figured I should come to

Thanks,

William

 

[orphy]

HDD Regen fixes this sort of problem. Its a bootable cd that does detect USB drives. Have you tried a chkdsk /f /r yet? as this will sometimes get it going and its free

 

[xazraelx]

HDD Regen fixes this sort of problem. Its a bootable cd that does detect USB drives. Have you tried a chkdsk /f /r yet? as this will sometimes get it going and its free

Will these solutions retain the data?

 

[thebeephaha]

chkdsk is known to destroy data, it just deletes what it doesn't understand. I've never hard of the HDD Regen before so I can't comment.

 

[Darknova]

chkdsk is known to destroy data, it just deletes what it doesn't understand. I've never hard of the HDD Regen before so I can't comment.

That's a first, never ever heard that before...or had that happen.

Proof please.

 

[domy85]

I own a Western Digital MYBOOK 320GB and what a hunk of junk it was. Every time I had to get something off of it or play music etc it would take its sweet time to spin up and im just going to leave it at that I threw it out the window and got a internal 16mb cache 700gb one and wow


Theres a tool Called Hard Drive Regenerator which physically fixes hard drive sectors that are mechanically failing believe it or not without touching the data. Its a iso so its bootable. If i find a away to send it to you through email ill let you know! Oh and iv used this on a 500gb hard drive and it took days to complete!

 

[rangerone766]

back in the day when 80gig was high end, i bought an 80gig wd external drive that took a poo/quit working right. all is not lost tho, what i did...

took it apart and plugged it directly into my ide cable in my pc. got all my data working. as a matter of fact that hard drive is still working today its in my other rig as a secondary storage drive.

i think either the power supply or usb chipset was failing on the external enclosure.

before i tried anything else i would disassemble that external and try the bare drive in your pc.

 

[choppy]

dont say crap like that guys, maybe your just unlucky?!

i got a 320gb external thats been working fine for about 2-3 yrs with none of the above problems. also got a mybook 250gb for 1-2yrs, again no probs whatsoever!!

 

[orphy]

chkdsk is known to destroy data, it just deletes what it doesn't understand. I've never hard of the HDD Regen before so I can't comment.

I have never seen that happen. In my experience either way retains data.

 

[newtekie1]

Try taking the drive apart and connecting it as an internal drive(it just has a standard SATA drive inside).

http://rebootdaily.blogspot.com/2007/03/how-to-open-western-digital-my-book.html

There are some instructions. It sounds to me like the SATA to USB/Firewire board might have screwed up. However, the hard drive could also be bad as WD MyBook drives are known to overheat.

 

[thebeephaha]

That's a first, never ever heard that before...or had that happen.

Proof please.

It deletes orphaned data. Just do some research on google. We don't use it at work in out tech department for this very reason.

 

[Darknova]

It deletes orphaned data. Just do some research on google. We don't use it at work in out tech department for this very reason.

I've always used chkdsk, and I've never lost any data. I've never heard of that before, and in both mine, and my father's experience (about 30+ years in total) neither of us has had it happen.

(by the way, my dad works for the foreign commonwealth office in the UK, you really think he'd use something that deletes data? Yeah, didn't think so...)

 

[newtekie1]

Chkdsk can cause problems. It doesn't delete the data, but it can make it appear to be deleted. It marks bad sectors as unusable, and tried to recover the data in those sectors. If the data is non-recoverable by chkdsk, the sector still gets marked as bad, and the data appears deleted. A good file recovery software can recover the data though, and chkdsk isn't the best as recovering data from bad sectors, so a lot of the data in bad sectors gets discarded by it when it can be recovered by better software.

 

[xazraelx]

Well, I've had no success with anything. I guess I will try to take it apart and see if it works as IDE. I wouldn't mind that.

For those who said it worked for them, was it the "clicking" error that WD has so many of, and then it worked? Or some error. From what I hear, the dreaded WD clicking is pretty much a no-go. Just wondering.

Thanks,

xazraelx

 

[thebeephaha]

I've always used chkdsk, and I've never lost any data. I've never heard of that before, and in both mine, and my father's experience (about 30+ years in total) neither of us has had it happen.

(by the way, my dad works for the foreign commonwealth office in the UK, you really think he'd use something that deletes data? Yeah, didn't think so...)

Thats good for you and your dad.

I'm just telling you what I've run into in my experience and from what I've heard from others. All I'm getting at and what newtekie1 pointed at is there is better.