My External Western Digital Hard Drive has just failed to be recognised by both my Desktop and Laptop but I have around 200GB of data which NEEDS to be recovered as soon as possible. However, one problem is that it is not being recognised by either machine and therefore is not appearing within My Computer. What can I do to recover the files? Please no silly answers, I am having real problems here as I have a lot of important information such as University reports etc. which NEED to be recovered. I don't have any other sources to get this information back so if it is lost forever, I'm in real trouble.
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3 responses so far ↓
1 Pauly // Jul 2, 2008
Computer stores can do data recovery but it can get costly. A word of advice in the future, also check the reviews when you buy external hard drives. There have been some specific models that have had nothing but trouble. I checked Amazon and had a few models in mind. Funny, some My Books are fine and other ones have had like a 60%-70% failure rate among users. I avoided the wrong model and mine has worked perfectly for over a year. A little lag when it's idle but other than that, it's flawless. I have read about so many models od different brands that have defect rates. You have to be careful what you buy!
2 reverend_dru // Jul 2, 2008
Assuming you've tried it on multiple different USB ports (or other machines), this suggests, at best, that the USB interface or the internal power is cooked.
Your next option is to crack open the drive housing, remove the HD from the inside, and connect it directly to your motherboard (IDE or SATA, whichever it needs) and attempt to mount the volume through the Computer Management option of the control panel.
If that works, grab the data and shuffle it someplace else for the time being, congrats, you've got what might be a healthy new HD in your PC.
if that fails to work - it most likely means your drive has gone toasty and standard 'easy' fixes to recover the data are not going to work.
Unless, by some fluke chance, you have an identical HD model (the drive itself, not the housing), and you attempt a control-board swap. It can be tricky, but if the data is that important, it might be worth looking into.
3 unfroze_caveman // Jul 2, 2008
Bust open the casing and take the drive out. Connect it directly to your motherboard on an IDE or SATA cable, whichever it is. If it still won't recognize the drive, try putting it in the freezer for about an hour, then let it get back to room temp, and try again. If that doesn't help, find an EXACT match to the drive (meaning the model number) and take the circuit board off the new one and attach it to yours. If that doesn't help, you would have to spend a couple grand on a data recovery specialist, or your just SOL.
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