External Hard Drive not working. Disk is spinning

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ryanvox

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Aug 13, 2016
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I am trying to recover some data from an external hard drive for a friend and I am kind of stumped. I plugged the drive in. From what I can hear the disk is spinning fine. No grinding or clicking or anything like that. The drivers all installed fine. Now any time I try to do anything related to the hard drive the window freezes and won't respond. If I go to My Computer the drive shows up as F: and when I open it or right click on it it freezes. Same thing if I open Disk Manager it just sits there and doesn't respond. If I open Disk Manager first before plugging the hard drive in the drive will show up. But if I right click on the disk and try to change the drive letter it says, "The operation failed because Disk Management is not up to date." Then it tells me to refresh it. I do and right away it doesn't respond. Any ideas? Thanks
 
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Boogieman_WD
So this is a WD drive? If "yes", then if it's one of the models with hardware encryption, what I've said above the encryption, proprietary connectors and the warranty, fully applies. Having in mind you current situation and everything that you've already tried, you could check out this link for data recovery: WD Data Recovery Partners.
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jossrik

jossrik

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Is the data important? If so, try a drive recovery place, somewhere that specializes in recovery, if not, time to buy a new HDD. You can try taking it out of the enclosure and hooking it up internally to your computer, external drives are just internal drives with a fancy plastic interface/usb-SATA card... That *might* work, other than that, not much you can do with it.
 
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Boogieman_WD

Boogieman_WD

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Hey there, Ryan.

What does it say about the drive and its partition/s when you see it in Disk Management, could you please post a screenshot (as you've mentioned that if you open it beforehand you can see the drive when connected)?
Other than that have you tried connecting the drive with a different USB cable and to a different USB ports (both 2.0 and 3.0)? If not, give it a go to see what happens.
Since you've mentioned your system freezes when you try to do something with the HDD, I'd recommend that you try accessing it via Ubuntu Live USB/DVD, to see if that OS is capable of properly recognizing the partition/s and access them so that you can backup the files.
You could also download the HDD manufacturer's diagnostic tool to see if it's able to show the SMART data (don't run any tests, just try to see the SMART data).

@Jossrik;s suggestion about taking the drive out of the enclosure might help sometimes, however there are some things you should take into account before you try that. This can only help if the issue is caused by a faulty enclosure; taking out a drive out of its original enclosure will most definitely void its warranty; if the HDD has hardware protection it's quite possible that you might not be able to get to those files without the original enclosure; the drive might have a proprietary connector, which could prevent you from being able to connect it internally.

Hope that helps. Please let me know how everything goes.
Boogieman_WD
 
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ryanvox

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Hello. Thanks for the response. I have tried a different port and different cable. USB 2.0 and 3.0 port. I was originally trying it on my laptop. Then I decided to try it on my desktop on the rear usb 3.0 on the motherboard to make sure it was getting enough power. Same thing there. I am not too familiar with ubuntu. Do I need to install that OS? I will see about the manufacturers diagnostic tool. Here is that screenshot. It is disk 1. Thanks again.
http://
 
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Boogieman_WD

Boogieman_WD

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Yup there's no file system recognized and no information about the partition whatsoever. It probably got corrupted because of the problems with the HDD itself. As for Ubuntu Live, no, you don't need to install it. It's a freeware, bootable portable version of Linux. You can create a flash drive with it and use it to boot to Ubuntu, just to see if the drive can be accessed normally. Here's how to create the flash drive: https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/create-a-usb-stick-on-windows
 
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ryanvox

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No luck with Ubuntu either. It just hangs. I also downloaded the WD Utility tester thing and no luck there either.
 
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