No power to WD internal hard drive

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Tangles82

Reputable
Feb 3, 2015
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Hi everyone,

I leave my PC on 24/7 and the other day I woke up to find my main hard drive had "crashed". When I say "crashed", my computer had restarted and was sitting on a screen saying "Error reading from hard drive, press any key to reboot" or something to that effect. Multiple reboots later and still nothing.

My initial thoughts are that the hard drive's power supply is FUBAR as you can't really hear the drive spinning up on startup. That said though, the BIOS detects it as a SATA hard drive (not sure whether power is required for that, though).

Anyway, I ended up buying a new hard drive and installed windows etc etc and plugged the old one back in to try and recover some data off it - the BIOS still detects it however Windows doesn't.

Is there anything I can do or try to get this to work? I really just want to get my data off it then I'm happy to throw it away, so even a temporary fix will be fine.

Cheers in advance.
 
Solution
SuperSoph_WD
Hey there again, @Tangles82!

Unfortunately, it does look like this WD HDD has failed! :( The fact that it has too many bad sectors means that it's definitely a good idea to consider a professional data recovery assistance. You should also check the warranty status of the WD drive. If by any chance it's still covered, you should be able to send an RMA request to our Customer Support.

I'm sorry I couldn't be more helpful. Let me know if you have more questions.
SuperSoph_WD
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SuperSoph_WD

SuperSoph_WD

Glorious
Jul 30, 2014
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Hey there, @Tangles82!

I'm sorry to hear about your WD internal HDD failure! :( You mentioned that BIOS is able to recognize the drive, so I'd suggest you check if Disk Management or Device Manager in Windows also detect it as a SATA disk drive. Posting some screenshots from there would be helpful as well.
If you are able to see it in either one of those places, I'd suggest running the QUICK & EXTENDED tests from WD's Data LifeGuard Diagnostics for Windows. The tool will help us determine what is the health and SMART status of your WD HDD.
If you have access to another computer, try plugging the drive there as well. Also, if you haven't tried this already, swap the SATA cable and the port on the motherboard to see if that will make the HDD visible in Windows.

As soon as you can access your files, make sure you back them up somewhere else immediately!

Keep me posted with the troubleshooting!
Cheers,
SuperSoph_WD
 
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Tangles82

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Feb 3, 2015
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4,510


Hi there,

I opened Device Manager, and it appears there:
hdd-1_zpstkknzc7u.jpg


So next I opened Disk Management and this window comes up:
hdd-2_zpscisshtqk.jpg


By doing this will I lose all the data??

Cheers
 
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SuperSoph_WD

SuperSoph_WD

Glorious
Jul 30, 2014
6,758
3
45,960
Hey there again, @Tangles82!

Unfortunately, even though the HDD is successfully detected in both Disk Management and Device Manager, it doesn't have a file system. That's what the 'Not Initialized' status means. If you click on the 'Initialize Disk', it will re-format the HDD and that would lead to data loss. :( I'd advise you to leave it like that for now and run the tests I mentioned in my previous post first. They will help us determine what is the health state and SMART data attributes of the WD HDD. If any of these tests fail, I'd strongly recommend you consider contacting a Professional Data Recovery Company for assistance, as they would be your best bet on getting any of the files back.
You can also do some data recovery attempts by yourself but they are potentially dangerous to the content on the drive, since we are not aware of the damage you are dealing with at the moment. Run the diagnostic tests and let me know how it goes.

Cheers,
SuperSoph_WD
 
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Tangles82

Reputable
Feb 3, 2015
4
0
4,510

Hi again,

Sorry I've taken so long to get back to you.

I downloaded and ran the Data Lifeguard Diagnostics, as follows:
hdd-4_zpspq77km0a.jpg

I then ran the quick test, and waited for 15 mins:
hdd-3_zpswkjyqoj1.jpg

I figured it should've at least moved a bit, so I canceled and got this message:
hdd-5_zpsfhkcpdvg.jpg

Pretty certain that means it's gone?? :(
 
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SuperSoph_WD

SuperSoph_WD

Glorious
Jul 30, 2014
6,758
3
45,960
Hey there again, @Tangles82!

Unfortunately, it does look like this WD HDD has failed! :( The fact that it has too many bad sectors means that it's definitely a good idea to consider a professional data recovery assistance. You should also check the warranty status of the WD drive. If by any chance it's still covered, you should be able to send an RMA request to our Customer Support.

I'm sorry I couldn't be more helpful. Let me know if you have more questions.
SuperSoph_WD
 
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