malfunctioning WesternDigital external drive

Model WD1600U017-004

Has been a very reliable midsize jumpdrive, which I carry a substantial amount of work & personal info on.

While hooked to my laptop today, while I was 'hibernating' the laptop, it started making an odd sound - a repetitive 'beep boop' noise, lower to higher.
I wasn't sure what it was, but now the drive seems to be 'invisible', and I'm worried it may be damaged, and trying to recover the files on it.

I've tried putting in on my laptop as well as my desktop.
If I go into My Computer, I do not see the drive
If I go into disk management I do not see the drive
under 'safely remove hardware' it sees a generic USB mass storage device.

I've uninstalled and reinstalled the drivers.
I've tried to find it with TestDisk, which also doesn't see it.

It is not being assigned a drive letter, and I can't access it through Windows Explorer, etc.

I have some critical work docs on here, and years of pictures since I use it as a personal backup as well. If I have to bin the drive, I'm fine with that, as long as I can get the data from it.

Help? What other information can I provide?
thanks!!!

 

Hi whtrabbit666, Welcome to Windowsbbs. Sounds like HD gone south. Have you tried > Start > Run > type diskmgmt.msc > OK > does it show?
You may have to slave it in your desktop and try and get the info from it that way. Cheers Neil.

 

I'll try both of those suggestions - thanks.
If those don't work, what options might I have?
This drive has literally my entire music collections, pictures from my fathers wedding, about 6mths worth of .ppt presentations for work, etc.
Any way to pop the drive itself into another chassis or do some sort of recovery programme?

Way way way appreciate the help.

 

I've used WD drives for over 30 years The 160G series has proven to be a less than reliable device. Hope you backed up your stuff.... I RMA'ed 5 WD 1600 series drives in 5 months - the same RMA 5 times until they finally gave me a new 320 G drive. I had 2 DOA out of the box, 1 lasted a matter of minutes, and the other 2 lasted less than a week. All but the first came from WD. I still don't rely on the new 320 G at all.....
Your problem could also be USB cables, device & ports. Test the port(s) with another USB device -mouse, keyboard, pen drive, etc.; passing that, test the drive on a known good machine - direct hook-up - no USB interface. If it works, grab your data onto CD/DVD or the like and go on testing at a leisurely pace - if it doesn't work, unfortunately you now know the meaning of the word 'BACKUP'.
If the drive doesn't work, there are other ways to possibly get your data.... But first things first - find out what is broke.

 

okay! so followed the advice of folks, and here's what I've done so far.
I am a combination of optimistic (the drive spins, so is functional), and pessimistic (nothing can "see" it, so worried might be an electrical/connector issue).

On Sunday:
- Opened the case and put the small notebook 160G HD into a generic external HD usb dock.

- Used Hiram's tools to see what worked and didn't (http://www.hirensbootcd.net/screenshots.html)
Basically, nothing really came from it.

- Also used DiskGetor as well as TestDisk (http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk) to try and recover data.

- Norton disk editor would open the drive and it showed all 0s.

- Windows would recognize the usb device as an external mass storage device, but would not "mount" any hard drives.

- No partitions are found via any program.

- WD diagnostic tools would recognize the drive, but could not find partitions.

- Any WD tests immediately fail with a "Cable errorâ€. Even after using known good cables (ie, the USB docking station)

- Behavior is the same with the USB Dock or the original small citcuit board with the USB connector that is in the casing we took apart.

- When the drive is powered up, it does seem as though the drive is physically spinning up.

- Possibly the electronics between the connectors and the drive itself are faulty, not the disc itself. Ie, the controller and firmware has probably lost its mind.

- I'm thinking that if we were to get another similar 160G HD, we could try swapping the circuit boards between the drives to see if we could recover it.

- It is possible there is engineering firmware that could get the drive to transfer data or at least better troubleshoot the controller than the WD tools.

- gpartd nor mount in linux could see the drive.


Any thoughts? I appreciate your help and insight, and apologize for the slow reply on this. I travel for work about 80%, and was out of the country for an unexpected spell.

Thanks!

 

Unfortunately, it sounds your drive may have gone away.
I have heard of people doing what you referred to in swapping out the electronics, haven't heard of too much success tho - couple of things. The drives have to be EXACT, not similar. Again, if you do that, and if it works - get your data and run!!. You also may end up destroying both drives.
There are many places out there that can and will retrieve your data, but it is downright expensive. In your case, you may have to foot the bill as you say you have some irreplaceable data.
I would try every data recovery piece of software I could get my hands on before I spent too much money. Tiramisu, Recuva, etc.... You may not salvage it all, but you just might lessen the professional recovery bill.

All food for thought - Good Luck

 

whtrabbit666,

If you want to try a software recovery program, try Active@File Recovery. They have a demo that will tell you what it can find. You may have to buy the retail version, but the $45 would be worth it in this case. I've used it with success before.

Mike

 

does anyone else have any experience with this tool?
It does sound interesting/different, since it's purporting to pull data from a non-bootable source?

 

Your electronics seem to have gone bad. If you could lay your hands on the exact model drive & swap the card you could possibly save your data or worse you could destroy it entirely.

If the data is very important & valuable do as Arie suggested in #10. Do not fool around with data recovery soft wares as it could render your data completely inaccessible.