Hard Disk Failure

[Bill McNeal]

I have an WD My Passport external USB drive. While backing up my important laptop data to it under Win 7, it froze. I've tried rebooting repeatedly without success.

The drive lights up when I connect it, and I hear it spin. It shows up under My Computer and the Device Manager, which shows no yellow triangles. I have tried uninstalling/reinstalling the device and disabling/enabling it under Device Manager.

But when I try to click on it on Explorer, it freezes. It's as if Windows trying to open it but it doesn't respond. I don't have another PC to test the drive on, but I connected it to my router and it wasn't visible on my network.

Any other steps I can take to recover the drive and data? Would something like Recuva work or would you recommend other steps?

Thanks!

 

[silicon]

i have heard of people freezing the drives in a freezer to get them to run again. Often its only long enough to recover data and then thats it. Data recovery is expensive but it can be done. if the files are very important then maybe this is an option?There is also a canadian company that sells hard drive parts.

 

[redzo]

Access disk management!
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windows7/ht/disk-management-windows-7.htm
Check the status of the drive! Does it even show up in disk management? Better post a picture of your disk management window if you can!

 

[inachu]

I have a few external drives for work and after countless research to get as much off as possible then here is what I would do if I was in your shoes with that particular drive.

Since the drive is not frozen at boot time then you do not need to drop it by 1 inch to try to unfreeze the read and write head.
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Your symptoms do appear to be heat related. I would toss it in the freezer for 10 minutes then try reading the data again.

 

[Squeetard]

Remove the drive from the enclosure and plug it directly by sata into your computer, then see what you can see.

 

[inachu]

Remove the drive from the enclosure and plug it directly by sata into your computer, then see what you can see.

Still 50/50 but good advice. Forgot about that.

 

[Bill McNeal]

Access disk management!
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windows7/ht/disk-management-windows-7.htm
Check the status of the drive! Does it even show up in disk management? Better post a picture of your disk management window if you can!

Thanks for all the advice. I tried this but it seems to take a long time at "Connecting to Virtual Disk Service" and nothing appears when I click on Disk Management.

I don't have a SATA to USB cable, but will try the direct connection if I can find one.

How long do I need to place it in the freezer to work? I tried using my drive after I let it cool for hours at room temperature.

 

[denis280]

How long do I need to place it in the freezer to work

10 minutes minimum

 

[Bill McNeal]

Thank you.

This drive is USB 3 only, does not have any SATA connector.

 

[Emulex]

It's fried! this is how all of my usb drives fail!

I would try another power brick if you have a compatible power brick and different usb cable but that is really reaching! I've had both fail on me before causing the same problems.

Basically kiss it goodbye and hopefully file an RMA claim and restore from backups!

 

[RecoveryForce]

I have an WD My Passport external USB drive. While backing up my important laptop data to it under Win 7, it froze.

Any other steps I can take to recover the drive and data? Would something like Recuva work or would you recommend other steps?

If it died while backing up your data, why not just replace it and back it up again? I assume this means that there is data on there, that wasn't stored anywhere else.

1. The freezer will not do anything positive for this drive. It is not overheating and it is spinning.
2. If you remove the drive from the USB enclosure and bypass the USB/SATA bridge, the data on the drive will not be accessible because it is encrypted
3. If the data is important to you, you should consider sending to a data recovery pro before doing anything further
4. If the data is not important to you, replace it under warranty if you can.
5. If the data is not important to you, you can try to connect the drive (in its enclosure) to a Linux system and try to clone it with ddrescue...but, it seems unlikely that Linux will detect the drive enough to give LBA sector access either.
6. Don't run data recovery software, like Recuva, on the original drive. It is better and less stressful on the failing drive to get a full clone first, then run the data recovery software against the clone.

Sorry for the point form post, but I find it easier to share my thoughts this way.