Portable HD dropped recognized but won't open files

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RegrettingThisNow

Commendable
Nov 17, 2016
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I've searched this thread all over and couldn't find any recent info. I have a WD passport that slipped out of my hand while I still held the cord and yanked off, crash landing on tile floor from about 3 ft (wasn't running). I initially plugged it into my blu ray player hoping it would just work and was able to open files and start a movie for about 3 minutes before the device froze. I unplugged and restarted blu ray and the device would no longer recognize the HD. Plugged it up into the computer, it would mount and be accessible through device manager, but not on 'My Computer'. I don't know what I did, but now the drive is recognized, but I cannot click to open the drive or even right click to check on it in My Computer.
I can feel the HD spinning and the light flashes as usual. No beeping or clicking noises. I've tried uninstalling the driver and reinstalling, recovery programs like recuva(?). I'm willing to disassemble and hook it up with a SATA, but I'm holding off to try everything before taking that step.
Yes, yes I know. I will get answers like "Back up the back up" and 'You're screwed", but can we just leave those out and see what other methods have helped others. No, I'm not willing to take to a professional yet either, so don't suggest it.

Thanks!
 
Solution
D_Know_WD
There could be many reasons for that. Yet, we can't really know what is wrong with it. It could be a damaged read/write head, platters, etc.

Yeah, in many cases, failing/failed drives cause overall system unresponsiveness. As you can't even access the drive with the brand specific tool, I doubt you will manage to do that with others.

One last thing you can give a try is the Ubuntu Live CD approach. You can see if the drive would be accessible under another OS. You will need a CD or a flash drive, so you can boot Ubuntu, navigate to the drive and see if it would be accessible. In case it is, you need to back up the most important data stored on it ASAP. Thread on that: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/267999-32-recover-data-mode...
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D_Know_WD

D_Know_WD

Judicious
Jul 30, 2014
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Hi there RegrettingThisNow,

That is really unpleasant. :(

Mechanical drives are really vulnerable to shocks/hits. Most probably, the drive has sustained some physical damage.
As you don't really want to take the drive to a data recovery company, you can:
- Try to access the drive with some software tools, even though, you may not be able to. You can see if you can access your data with some of these: https://www.lifewire.com/free-data-recovery-software-tools-2622893
- If you manage to access the drive with any of those and retrieve your data, you can check the drive's health status out with WD's DLG tool(both short and extended tests): http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=NQdpLW
- Attaching it with a different cable to another computer will not hurt.

Taking the drive out of the enclosure may not work due to various reasons:
- Most probably, the HDD itself is damaged, not the enclosure.
- The device may have a proprietary connected and you will not be able to connect it internally.
- The device is hardware encrypted and you will not be able to access the data.

Let me know in case you have some more questions,
D_Know_WD :)
 
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R

RegrettingThisNow

Commendable
Nov 17, 2016
2
0
1,510
Is there any reason that it would have worked briefly after the drop and then stopped?

Also, it is getting recognized on the computer as a driver, but every time I try to right click, the computer freezes or the program stops responding.

When trying some of the above programs, for example WD's DLG tool, I can get it to say that it is running an initiate search of the drivers (upon loading), but it won't open to the main screen unless I unplug the hard drive. Not sure what is blocking it, but I have a sliver of hope somewhere...

Thanks for the quick response too btw!
 
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D_Know_WD

D_Know_WD

Judicious
Jul 30, 2014
6,633
3
35,960
There could be many reasons for that. Yet, we can't really know what is wrong with it. It could be a damaged read/write head, platters, etc.

Yeah, in many cases, failing/failed drives cause overall system unresponsiveness. As you can't even access the drive with the brand specific tool, I doubt you will manage to do that with others.

One last thing you can give a try is the Ubuntu Live CD approach. You can see if the drive would be accessible under another OS. You will need a CD or a flash drive, so you can boot Ubuntu, navigate to the drive and see if it would be accessible. In case it is, you need to back up the most important data stored on it ASAP. Thread on that: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/267999-32-recover-data-mode
Sometimes, Ubuntu handles better failing drives.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD :)
 
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