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Started by hoyasaxa1 | | 4 answers
dead external HDD
I have an external Western Digital hard drive. Suddenly, it appears unformatted. Also, most efforts to access the drive (even just plugging it in) causes Windows to hang.

I really need to recover the content of the drive, even if the external enclosure is trashed. Should I disassemble, build a new enclosure? Are there any tools I should try short of that?

thanks
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October 17, 2014 4:26:59 PM

D_Know_WD said:
Hi there hoyasaxa1,

I am really sorry that your WD HDD is causing you issues. What is the exact model of the drive? Some models have hardware encryption and you will not be able to access the data if you take it out of the enclosure.

Otherwise, you can try to run chkdsk /R H: where H: is the drive letter. This will locate bad sectors and eventually recover readable information.

Keep in mind that running one recovery software after another may further damage the data. Your safest bet is to contact a data recovery company.
In case you decide to go with that, here is a link to WD's Data Recovery Partners: http://support.wdc.com/recovery/index.asp?lang=en

Hope the chkdsk helps in a way,
D_Know_WD



If you're still watching, wdt-d2c(b)
September 23, 2014 11:31:09 PM

Hi there hoyasaxa1,

I am really sorry that your WD HDD is causing you issues. What is the exact model of the drive? Some models have hardware encryption and you will not be able to access the data if you take it out of the enclosure.

Otherwise, you can try to run chkdsk /R H: where H: is the drive letter. This will locate bad sectors and eventually recover readable information.

Keep in mind that running one recovery software after another may further damage the data. Your safest bet is to contact a data recovery company.
In case you decide to go with that, here is a link to WD's Data Recovery Partners: http://support.wdc.com/recovery/index.asp?lang=en

Hope the chkdsk helps in a way,
D_Know_WD
September 23, 2014 7:47:59 PM

SR-71 Blackbird said:
This is the reason I switched to Cloud storage , I lost a several thousand photos when my external failed.


I don't trust the cloud, but I'd appreciate any advice about building a home NAS with RAID ... probably need a lot of storage, though.

Any thoughts on recovering the drive?

I've tried a couple different recovery tools, but they are just hanging...
September 23, 2014 7:24:29 PM

This is the reason I switched to Cloud storage , I lost a several thousand photos when my external failed.

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