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My Western Digital 1 TB external hard drive is not showing in my computer.
The drive light is on & I can hear the drive. But its not showing up on my desktop. Can anyone help me to backup the data from my hard drive. I have some very important data on it.
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So This is what we know:
You were using your drive (PC running Windows Vista) and while it was running you banged it (was on the edge and then it fell onto the flat side). At that point you unplugged the USB cable and then reconnected (failing to dismount the drive). Now you can't access the drive, but the device driver and the USB interface internally of the drive is responsive (drives power light is lighting). So the drive was spinning when you knocked it. And, you failed to dismount the drive correctly.
We don't know if the system was still in the process of writing to the drive (where you in the process of reading or writing a file off of the external drive?) If not then the cache write back is only effected which is a minor issue. Otherwise the file you were accessing is likely damaged.
The big issue here is what was the drive doing, was the disk head arm parked or engaged? From the sounds of it it appears the arm was engaged so it was somewhere on the plater/s. So the heads likely dug into the platter ripping one or more off and damaging a part of the magnetic surface of the plater (heads crashed). It doesn't take much for this to happen.
OK now what - If the data is that important you'll need to send your drive in to a data recovery service so they can disassemble the drive in a clean room to try repair the drive long enough to pull your data off (replacing the damaged heads).
If you have also encrypted your data you will need to give them the application and the encryption keys so the they can decrypt the data. It also turns out the HD it's self is hardware encrypted so it will only work with the logic board it is mounted to, so you can't send them just the hard drive internally alone either (need to ship the complete drive with the power adapter).
The cost will be expensive and there is still a chance they can't recover the data. Attempting to fix this via software won't work and if you are able to get it to respond the process could make things worse. Here's a PC Mag article on what happens in a clean room Don't forget to try out their drive simulator to see what happened to your drive.
Sorry for the bad news ;-{
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This makes me sad, noooooo!!!! :'C
i sent mine to a data recovery center and some how the magnets had shattered and appertainly from the email i got back it wasn't very pretty but some how they were able to recover 24.6GB of 42.9GB from my 1 TB hard drive so people becarful on how you handle your hard drives
really bad news for me, the same happened to me here..awww!
My 1 TB drive is spinning but not lighting up.. Shows up on devices but not on th drives?? What to do please..
Hello Dan!! You seem like you know what you're doing, so I am hoping you can help me! This just happened to my Drive. It is a My Passport Western Digital 3 TB Drive. I dropped it about 2 feet onto a hardwood floor, but it was not plugged in. RIGHT before that happened, my computer died while it was plugged in (so it was improperly ejected AND dropped). I plugged it in and the light is blinking as usual, but it is not showing up on my desktop or in my Disk Utilities. I have a Mac OS X Yosemite if that makes a difference...Let me know if you can help. I am a wedding photographer so I also have a lot of import
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As i am reading I see alot of the same issues and seems like no one knows how to answer a question without going in circles, and repeating the same issue:
here we go:
updated against my will to windows 10
1T ext HDD WD1300 drivers and firmware upsated
worked fine, until a few days agao within hours!
HDD in a protected space on my desk, always "ejected media" correctly
i do notice the cable is kinked (leading to a data cable issue)
makes the DING noise to recognize device also asks to safley remove HDD when i dismount
shows only in Device manager does not show in my PC
in Disc management it shows a RED X and drive not initialized
have tried to initialize as i am upset and just want to fix this thing. dont work!
today attemp 7/30/2016
i do not hear the dive spinning... now what?
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RE: Purpleghost980 and others
Here is how the system works (in general)
1) Plugging in a USB device will trigger the auto-configuration on the PC to detect the device type and ther information. In order for this part to work, the USB interface on the device must work.
2) Once the device is detected, additional information is requested about the device. Kind, size, etc.
3) If the device is a disk, then the controller card attached to the device is queried to get device specific information. Realize that by this time, the device has already begun and potentially completed its self test.
4) Assuming the controller card works as expected, the device information is sent along to the PC and the device appears to the user with its information (device type and size for example).
5) When you attempt to access the disk, the controller will then attempt to read the appropriate information from the disk. If the disk can be read, great. If not, then an error will appear much like what has been reported here.
The bottom line is that there are many possibilities that can cause the symptom of “not appearing” to the user. In regards to not hearing the device spin: The device CAN appear on the Windows machine even without spinning since the controller will acknowledge its existence to the computer. This is step 2 above and does not involve accessing the actual drive itself.
Hope this helps,
Drives do wear out, some sooner than others!
I have a deep drawer full of dead drives :-{
There is little you can do to fix a crashed drive. If Disk Utility can see it you might be able to run for Mac First-Aid or for Windows CHKDSK to get it going that is if it’s a simple corrupted boot block or file. Beyond that if you don’t have a backup and the data is important you’ll need to send the drive to a clean room lab that has the tools, parts & skills to salvage your data.
wd drives seem to wear out with minimal use. I've gone through 3 very expensive ones. I just want buy WD anymore after last hoorah with customer service stringing me along with bad advice and wrong return authorization nunbers until my warranty expired! I can't stand WD anymore . I am blessed with giant paper weights now. Very expensive ones. Lost all my stuff as well
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Here's an answer western digital sucks and they're refund warranty policies are junk and they will lead you on to believe your getting a refund than screw up your warranty by not sending you all the info needed to return item messaging you from random email address you can't respond too open up like 59 tickets on website for nothing . Giant 259$ paper weight is what western digital sells . They make such crappy hardrrives they fail after a year of light to no use for no reason. Worst company ever . Never again . NEVEE
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Make sure your USB adapter drivers are functioning well and up to
Is the external drive working fine in another system? If you've not tried it, please do.
Also try to see if another external hard drive works fine on your system.
If another external drive works fine on your system, then the problem is with your external hard drive. Your external hdd is damaged.
Get a data recovery software such as EaseUS recovery tool by downloading and installing it, (you can use the trial version), use it to open the external drive, you would see your files there. Recover what you want by saving them in another drive.
If another external hard drive doesn't work fine on your system, then go to Google, search for the USB drivers for your system brand and model. Download it.
Go to device manager, under USB, uninstall the USB adapters.
Then go back to the USB driver you just downloaded, install it.
Restart your computer.
Test your external hard drive on it.
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My hard drive is transcend 2T rugged type. it fell but not so hard, there is no funny sound when i plug it. I also ran a troubleshoot and the message is that the device IS working properly but I can't seem to access it at all. Please, what can I do?
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Transcend makes SSD’s that’s a different type of drive it does not have a spinning disk with a moving head assembly used in HDD’s. In your case the Mac or Windows Drive Utilities should fix the corruption. If not you’ll need to contact Transcend for help.
Ok, I am also having an issue with multiple Western Digital HDD’s not being acknowledged in windows 10, and in my case, not showing in disk manager either.
So I find my way to this post, which is titled “SOLVED” so am I just missing something or what? Where is the Solve part?
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Rai needed to send his drive to a data recovery service, he couldn't fix it him self
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41 Commenti
What happened just before you lost access? Did you disconnect it without dismounting the volume or when the system was powered off? Did the power supply get disconnected while it was writing a file (or the AC power go out)? What is your system PC or MAC?
da Dan
Dan,
Disconnect it without dismounting. M used with my laptop. I can see it in device manager but not showing in my computer. is it possible to backup the data?? plz help
da Raj
Raj you'll need to help me here a little. What is M and did you disconnect the drive without dismounting? I still need to know what OS Windows or Mac OS-X and what version.
da Dan
Sorry Dan its typo mistake. I am using Windows Vista home premium. I didn't disconnect the drive without dismounting.
da Raj
OK, good start. Can you explain what happened to the drive did you bang or drop it while it was running or when it was off? The more detail will help.
da Dan
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