biochem_bill

I am having a similar problem with my WD 500GB external hard drive. I have been taking some of the advice from other threads but I think I've just done more damage..... Let me start from the beginning.

I bought this drive about two years ago. About a year ago it started to not be recognized by any computer in my home. It would show up as "Local Disc" just as described in other threads. I could safely remove it and hook it back up and sometimes it would be recognized as "MyBook" so I basically have been doing that for the past year.

I recently bought a 1TB WD MyBook. So I wanted to transfer everything from the 500gig over. In transferring the files (mostly music) I got repeated "cyclic redundancy errors" and could not copy that particular file. I just deleted those and tried to copy the rest. It got so bad that eventually every file was corrupt and the hard drive was no longer recognized by my computer.

So here's what I decided. The data is not important. I want the hard drive to function again....if possible. I dowloaded the WD diagnostics. The quick and extended tests fail and show something like an excessive amount of bad sectors. So I chose "write zeros." This also failed. So I tried WD formatter to format back to factory FAT32. The error message there said "Can't copy image to disk."

Currently the hard drive no longer shows up in My Computer but is in disk management. It shows that the entire hard drive is unallocated. I cannot format it from here.

I also dowloaded a program called swiss knife which is supposed to format it to FAT32 and just get another error message. So I am now consulting this forum.

I have downloaded TestDisk. At Step G on this site http://www.techsupportforum.com/cont...icles/149.html (sorry I don't know how to post hyperlinks) my structure is not okay. I think it says that there is no partition and prompts me to search deeper. I chose this (search deeper) and it asks me if I want to change cylinders, headers..... a bunch of other things I know nothing about.

Any help would be great. Like I said...I don't care about the data. I just want the drive to function again. I have some screen shots from the WD diagnostics if you need them. Just let me know. I appreciate your time.

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eneles

Welcome to TSF.

Replace the USB cable and try different ports on the computer.
Don't connect the drive via a hub.

If that doesn't help:
Take the HDD out and mount it in another enclosure or inside a desktop.

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biochem_bill

I have tried different USB cables and different USB ports on other comps. I cannot mount it to another enclosure ot desktop because I have a laptop. The people I live with have PC's but I don't think they'd be okay with me taking them apart. I do plan on buying a desktop within the next 3 or 4 months but is there anything I can do in the meantime? What was this option of changing cylinders and headers etc... on testdisk? I can post a screen shot if need be.

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eneles

Adjusting the number of cylinders etc won't help.

There's something wrong with the enclosure or the HDD itself.

The only way to find out is to take the drive out and connect it to the computer via another enclosure or an adapter.

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biochem_bill

So will that adapter hook up to my laptop via USB? How do I get the HDD out?

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I want to live, breathe. I want to be part of the human race.

eneles

Yes, the adapter will provide a connection from the HDD to a USB port.

To be honest - I don't know how to open the external WD enclosures.
It shouldn't be too difficult, but you never know.

What's the exact model name?

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