Hello, I hope someone can help me with a Western Digital External 4Gb USB My Book HDD. I was copying personal files from my computer to and external USB HDD, then when I went to reach for something on the table, it fell three feet to the floor. Now my Toshiba Satellite L50t Laptop and my Desktop doesn't recognized the drive. Then I went into diskpart to see if it could see is and it did, but it didn't look good. When I typed in diskpart: list disk, I get the following: Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt --------- --------- ------- ------ ---- ------------- Disk 0 ...Online ...931 GB ..0 B Disk 1 ...Online ..1863 GB ..0 B Disk 2 ...Online .......0 B ...0 B Disk 2 is the one with my personal files on it. Is there any way to try to attempt to get the files off the WD USB HDD with out paying an arm and a leg (may be more now (lol)). I would appreciate any and all comments and suggestions. Thank You.
Maybe try Recuva or HDD Regenerator. I know a lot of people have luck with those 2 utilities. It was successful for me one one hard drive, but not a few others which were already toast.
No offense intended but if you value your info pretty much then must pay a professional recovery service although it costs an arm and leg lol Try to "stabilize" your drive in the first place using HDD Regenerator, then use EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard 7.5 Pro to recover the most you it can. You can pm me for details.
DO NOT use HDD Regenerator other than being snake oil ! You don't want to be putting the drives under stress, it may cause more data loss since the drives have mechanical damage.
and before you consider taking the HDD out of its housing. IF you do, it will show no data at all since the board inside the housing also encrypts and once that is removed from the HDD you will have no files visible. Not gone, not you will not see them because they are encrypted. Only way I know to see them again after that, is to put it back on the board and connect the board back into the USB. Someone might have a method to decrypt the drive after its removed from the circuit board, but that is unknown to me.
Okay, so how would I find a recovery specialist, and how would I know that they can recover the files? I don't like throwing away money. Who do you think I am, the President? (lol) Thanks for replying.
It could be the controller board do you not have or know someone with same hard drive try swapping them to see if it works.
I am confused at the fact you said you were "copying" personal files from your computer..Aren't the originals still there? As Urie said..and would be my first move if it was really valuable data , is to purchase another WD 4tb and interchange to see if I could access my files. If I couldn't , then I would try to clone the bad external with the new one. PS. I've learned the hard way to not delete what i am copying until i have them "backed up" in two different locations..
Yes, I was just copying to the external HDD, but I also have other files on the WD 4TB HDD. Correct me if I misunderstood you, you saying that I could get another WD 4TB HDD and swap the controller board and see if I can access the files? I don't know of anyone with the same WD 4TB USB My Book HDD. Any ideas where I can get one cheap to just see if it's the controller board? I was under the impression that when you have a HDD that goes bad, via dropping or misuse, it would have a read/write errors and the data could be compromised. I could be wrong. Thank you for your assistance.
you are absolutely correct! want one fast..walmart for 140 , want one cheap , newegg for 119 , hell your in jersey , newegg would be fast and cheap p.s. I have interchanged seagate external drive parts with no ill effects..WD does the "encryption" thing ..so I am not 100% on that. I only have one so can't test for you
Imoe that's exactly what happened, HDDs had read/write errors due bad sector and data WAS compromised, at least partially. Dropping or misuse are the mostly the major cause. Not so for board controller. Well, could you feedback to us about my assistance, just to learn a bit more
I just suggested what I would do before sending it away to "data recovery" or doing further damage by trying to restore partitions on an "encrypted" drive. the data is most likely trashed being dropped while on..let alone transferring files .. that much i agree with
hehe I have roughly same model if not same model. I just spent the night moving data off of it so I could drop it (had to put it back in its inclosure). After dropping it roughly 3 feet, it does not show any data. removing it from the inclosure and looking at it, I can see where the socket has separated slightly from the board (broken solder). I always thought these had more shock resistance. Anyway, when I get home from work Ill try and spot weld the bits back to the board. But that appears to be the only damage since the HDD functions fine outside the inclosure. Plenty of formatting today, just to drop and break something haha
@ EFA11 Now that is going above and beyond the call of duty to help someone I had a Western Digital 150GB HD that was giving me problems with starting up at times. I searched the net extensively for answers but did not find anything to cure my problem. But I did run across the fact that they started with this encryption bull and could cost upwards of $1000 to get them to extract your data from a dead disc. Putting the disc in another similar enclosure would not work. The drive and circuit board are matched and will only work with each other. I immediately copied all the stuff off my drive and bought another external. And not a Western Digital. I then pulled the drive apart and stuck that drive into my computer as a second drive and it has been working great for about a year now. I was lucky ..... It did not have the encryption setup. That was and will be the last Western Digital I will ever buy.
hey it works. I haven't scanned the drive for damaged but can read/write to it again on its board in the inclosure. Now I need to remove it, give it a few deep scans and put it back in the system for storage hehe