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External HD not accessible. What could have gone wrong?

Tags:
  • Laptops
  • Western Digital
  • HD
Last response: in Toms Network
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October 12, 2014 9:45:45 AM

I have a WD My Passport 1 TB HD which I purchased around an year ago. Two days ago, I copied a few files from my laptop (running Win 8.1) to this hard disk and then ejected it safely. I gave it a friend of mine and he returned it back saying it is not working. When I plug it in my laptop, it gets detected but the drive does not appear. I opened Disk Management, but it gave an error that the disk must be initialized first. When I click on OK, it gives an error The request failed due to a fatal device hardware error.. The status of this disk is Not Initialized and Unallocated.





I tried to recover the partition usin MiniTool Partition. But it ran for hours and didn't fix anything. Even tried Easeus Partition Manager, but still nothing. So today I ran Ubuntu and tried GParted, but it does not even detect this disk.

What could be wrong ? What can I do to troubleshoot this ?

The data inside is not too important but I'd really like to try more methods to fix this before getting a replacement (still under warranty).

Thanks for all your help in advance!

More about : external accessible wrong

October 13, 2014 12:00:19 AM

Hi there shubham_2206,

Sorry that you are facing issues with your WD My Passport. I would suggest you to try connecting the device with another USB cable and to another USB port. It is strange that some of the software programs can't even detect it.
As the data is not that important, you can chkdsk (drive letter): /F in the Command Prompt. The cause of your issue might be a file system error, so this command may fix it. Keep in mind that it is possible to lose some of the with this command. Just use it if nothing else works.

In case nothing helps, I would advice you to test the device with WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostic tool and check out the HDD's health.

WD DLG tool: http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=810...

Hope this will help,
D_Know_WD
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October 13, 2014 9:35:32 AM

D_Know_WD said:
Hi there shubham_2206,

Sorry that you are facing issues with your WD My Passport. I would suggest you to try connecting the device with another USB cable and to another USB port. It is strange that some of the software programs can't even detect it.
As the data is not that important, you can chkdsk (drive letter): /F in the Command Prompt. The cause of your issue might be a file system error, so this command may fix it. Keep in mind that it is possible to lose some of the with this command. Just use it if nothing else works.

In case nothing helps, I would advice you to test the device with WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostic tool and check out the HDD's health.

WD DLG tool: http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=810...

Hope this will help,
D_Know_WD


Thanks for your reply. I will try to connect it with another cable and update the result here. Meanwhile, I tried running WD DLG tool but it doesn't even detect my hard disk.
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October 14, 2014 12:58:42 AM

My suggestion would be: connect the device with another cable and see whether the recovery partition software will recover something.
If again nothing happens and you can't even initialize the drive, I would suggest you to contract the WD's Tech Support either by email or phone and eventually RMA the drive.

WD Support: http://support.wdc.com/contact/index.asp?lang=en
RMA: http://support.wdc.com/warranty/

Cheers,
D_Know_WD
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October 14, 2014 4:35:40 AM

D_Know_WD said:
My suggestion would be: connect the device with another cable and see whether the recovery partition software will recover something.
If again nothing happens and you can't even initialize the drive, I would suggest you to contract the WD's Tech Support either by email or phone and eventually RMA the drive.

WD Support: http://support.wdc.com/contact/index.asp?lang=en
RMA: http://support.wdc.com/warranty/

Cheers,
D_Know_WD


Tried with another USB cable. Same result. Will go for a replacement.
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