I have a western digital external drive that worked fine until I tried to re-partition it using the internal windows 7 utilities. When I re-configured it, somehow it tried to use the boot sector to create the new partition and now will now recognize. I have tried everything I can think of and find online, up to and including trying to re-format the drive in hopes of being able to re-use the drive, but do have family data on the drive (pictures and such) that are irreplaceable. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated here.
External Drive issue
- Thread starter Dominant
- Start date
Solution
bambiboom
Splendid
- Apr 7, 2012
- 2,462
- 5
- 21,965
Dominant,
I sympathize completely as I have a USB 2. Western Digital Passport 320Gb and which has been a nightmare nearly from the beginning. These are dangerous devices in my view as they seem to work- be recognized- sometimes, stop working, and then work again. Currently, one partition of this drive can be seen and the other is invisible.
I'm not clear on the details of the failure. You mention the "boot sector"- was this configured as a boot drive?
In some cases, changing partitions by merging- rather than resizing- can wipe off the data, but the new space should be recognized regardless as even if it is unallocated. If it was a boot drive, but the boot sector is corrupted or removed, you might try EaseUs Partition Master (free) and see if it will recognize the drive and show the volumes. Be ready to copy the data at any time onto another drive as knowing these drives, there may not be another chance.
My only other advice is to try the technique that worked for me, which is to try the drive on every USB port on every computer with which you have access. My drive only works on one partition on the left front port of my Dell Precision T5400 - that system has 10 ports, and not at all on my HP z420 which has 10 ports both USB 2 and 3. Some people have commented that the ports closest to the motherboard are the best bet !
Sorry, I can't be more informative. I trusted this drive one time too many and I've had enough of the horrible uncertainty of the Passport. If I can ever recover the data from the missing partition, a half hour later I will create a video of running over this drive at 65mph with a 1970 Mercedes 300SEL 6.3L- my heaviest car. Knowing the Passport, it'll ruin an expensive VR tire,...
I've gone back to the external drives that have been perfectly reliable- a 3.5" drive in a enclosure having a power switch and a cooling fan. I run these only when backing up or making transfers larger than my flash drives and the drives last forever. I have a Seagate 160GB that is seven years old- perfect reliability. My new one is a Star Tech USB 3 (about $40) with power switch and switchable fan to which I added a Seagate 500Gb 1BD142 drive and I've seen sustained copy at 170MB/s. So far so good, but I back up to both the old and new Seagate and Star Tech for now.
Let us know what you discover. If you look around on this forum and the Intertubes in general, there are many many horror stories about these sometimes drives.
Cheers,
BambiBoom
I sympathize completely as I have a USB 2. Western Digital Passport 320Gb and which has been a nightmare nearly from the beginning. These are dangerous devices in my view as they seem to work- be recognized- sometimes, stop working, and then work again. Currently, one partition of this drive can be seen and the other is invisible.
I'm not clear on the details of the failure. You mention the "boot sector"- was this configured as a boot drive?
In some cases, changing partitions by merging- rather than resizing- can wipe off the data, but the new space should be recognized regardless as even if it is unallocated. If it was a boot drive, but the boot sector is corrupted or removed, you might try EaseUs Partition Master (free) and see if it will recognize the drive and show the volumes. Be ready to copy the data at any time onto another drive as knowing these drives, there may not be another chance.
My only other advice is to try the technique that worked for me, which is to try the drive on every USB port on every computer with which you have access. My drive only works on one partition on the left front port of my Dell Precision T5400 - that system has 10 ports, and not at all on my HP z420 which has 10 ports both USB 2 and 3. Some people have commented that the ports closest to the motherboard are the best bet !
Sorry, I can't be more informative. I trusted this drive one time too many and I've had enough of the horrible uncertainty of the Passport. If I can ever recover the data from the missing partition, a half hour later I will create a video of running over this drive at 65mph with a 1970 Mercedes 300SEL 6.3L- my heaviest car. Knowing the Passport, it'll ruin an expensive VR tire,...
I've gone back to the external drives that have been perfectly reliable- a 3.5" drive in a enclosure having a power switch and a cooling fan. I run these only when backing up or making transfers larger than my flash drives and the drives last forever. I have a Seagate 160GB that is seven years old- perfect reliability. My new one is a Star Tech USB 3 (about $40) with power switch and switchable fan to which I added a Seagate 500Gb 1BD142 drive and I've seen sustained copy at 170MB/s. So far so good, but I back up to both the old and new Seagate and Star Tech for now.
Let us know what you discover. If you look around on this forum and the Intertubes in general, there are many many horror stories about these sometimes drives.
Cheers,
BambiBoom
Bam,
Many thanks for the response, and in response, no, this was not set as a boot drive, just ghosted in as a slave when I plugged it in. I had no issues at all with it until I tried the internal windows partition creator that comes with windows 7,, (the system would not let Me use partition Magic 8 for some reason citing compatibility issues). It is a 1tb drive, which I had previously partitioned into approximately 6 drives. i merged two of said partitions, and tried to re-partition it and windows tried to use the boot sector of the device in the formation process. I can understand your frustration at not being able to use your device, but guess I just got lucky as I have never had an issue with wd externals before. (This is my third such external from them and have never had an issue). I hope this may shine more light on My issue and hopefully spark someones memory out there that had a similar problem.
Many thanks again,
Dom
Many thanks for the response, and in response, no, this was not set as a boot drive, just ghosted in as a slave when I plugged it in. I had no issues at all with it until I tried the internal windows partition creator that comes with windows 7,, (the system would not let Me use partition Magic 8 for some reason citing compatibility issues). It is a 1tb drive, which I had previously partitioned into approximately 6 drives. i merged two of said partitions, and tried to re-partition it and windows tried to use the boot sector of the device in the formation process. I can understand your frustration at not being able to use your device, but guess I just got lucky as I have never had an issue with wd externals before. (This is my third such external from them and have never had an issue). I hope this may shine more light on My issue and hopefully spark someones memory out there that had a similar problem.
Many thanks again,
Dom
TRENDING THREADS
-
-
Question Tried moving SSD from old PC to new one, now it won't boot from either
- Started by scyer327
- Replies: 9
-
Question why my pc dont have sound after install new Nvidia GPU Card?
- Started by sudsaviour
- Replies: 3
-
News Windows 11 will reportedly display a watermark if your PC does not support AI requirements- Started by Admin
- Replies: 17
-
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram