External HDD not working

[fisiqueto]

Hello.
I have a 500GB WD My Passport that stoped working a few days ago. It takes a lot of time for windows to recognize the device and it won't show up on My Computer. On the disk manager it shows up as offline and with 2000+GB. Even if i try to start de disk (disconsidering all the data) windows show an error saying the media is write protected. On my system BIOS that 2000+GB capacity shows as well. WD's own firmware updater and quick formater won't work either. I also tried Paragon DM and FileScavenger with no success (same "media write protected" @#!$).
To make things worse, its making a strange noise when it powers up (like there's an angry fly buzzing around inside of it).
I'm kinda loosing hope that ill ever get the data from it or even that ill get it working again, but i wanted some opinions before throwing it in the trash.
I would appreciate any suggestions. Thx.

 

[John_VanKirk]

Hello,

Could you take the SATA HDD out of the Passport ext drive case, and connect it directly to an Internal SATA port and power, to see if it will be recognized normally. If by chance the file structure is seen, immediately copy all the data to a functional HDD>

If not, then take a screen shot in Disk Management of the Disk Management dialog box to show with your post. That will give everyone a much better picture of how the drive is recognized by the OS.

The internal noise is from a failing/failed drive.

 

[fisiqueto]

Hello,

Could you take the SATA HDD out of the Passport ext drive case, and connect it directly to an Internal SATA port and power, to see if it will be recognized normally. If by chance the file structure is seen, immediately copy all the data to a functional HDD>

If not, then take a screen shot in Disk Management of the Disk Management dialog box to show with your post. That will give everyone a much better picture of how the drive is recognized by the OS.

The internal noise is from a failing/failed drive.

Unfortunately, for me, the OS is not even recognizing the drive anymore. It keeps making that strange noise for a while and then it enters a stand-by mode, i think. After a while, the OS starts playing that usb connection/disconnection sound. By the way, my OS is Windows 7 Ultimate x64.

I can't plug the drive directly 'couse the disk board doesn't have a sata connection, only usb.

Since i can't take a screen shot, this is what it used to happen:

With the Computer Management opened, i would click on Disk Management. It would start connecting to the Virtual Disk Service and then a pop-up window would appear saying that the Disk1 needs to be initialized. If i clicked on Ok button, the error "media is write protected" bumped in the screen. If i clicked Cancel, i could see the drive on the lower list (where it shows details about the partitions) but with no partition at all and 2000+GB capacity. The icon had a down red arrow on it, indicating the disk was offline.