serious troubles with my WD My Passport Essential 320 GB HD

Darci · 05-07-2009, 12:13 PM

I have a removable WD hard drive and I am using Windows Vista. When I plug it in, it seems to work ok until I try to copy over my entire pictures folder. I am trying to back everything up because A - I want to try reformatting it and B - WD is sending me a new one. I will die if I lose my pictures, I am one of those people. ok so... when I try to copy the entire folder (23 gigs, 15 000 some odd photos) it freezes. I seem to be ok if I do it folder by folder until it gets to my .mov files, these are video I had taken with my Kodak camera. If I try to delete them (or anything from the WD disc) my PC freezes up. The system works a-ok until that *bleeping* drive is plugged in. I have been just doing it folder by folder. If it's plugged in when I start my Dell Inspiron 1521, it gives me the message that the G drive needs to be checked for consistency (what exactly does this message mean? h/w failure or s/w failure?). So I am letting it do that now (bad idea? good idea?) and it says it's recovering bad clusters in the files that seemed to make it freeze up. Also, when I tried using CDBurnerXP to burn pictures (can't use drag to disc because it freezes) it seems to work for *some* but then says it can't read the file location of certain photos and .mov files (the same ones that the recovery says it is repairing bad clusters on.

I was just wondering if this startup repair will do more damage than good? I generally don't trust Windows... If this doesn't work what can I try? I would really like to be able to recover that video if possible, it's a lot of footage of my family, vacations, pets, etc.

what in your opinion is this caused by? h/w failure or s/w complications? no s/w is installed on the drive, is this maybe why it won't read the .movs? Being that they are quicktime dependent?

I should mention it's on FAT32... I should have formatted it before I started using it, I know... a year and a half of not doing tech support makes you forget the basics ;)

**raptor_pa** · 05-07-2009, 03:14 PM

SOunds like bad clusters in that folder, perhaps in teh FAT directory for that folder. The chkdsk it is running now should be OK, tho I have had several drives come in for recovery after chkdsk worked it's magic. Let it finish tho, interrupting it is probably worse. as long as QT is installed it can play the images no matter where they are-and also wouldn't have any effect on copying the raw files.

05-07-2009, 12:13 PM	#1 (permalink)
Darci Registered User Join Date: Feb 2007 Posts: 1 OS: Windows Vista Home Premium	serious troubles with my WD My Passport Essential 320 GB HD I have a removable WD hard drive and I am using Windows Vista. When I plug it in, it seems to work ok until I try to copy over my entire pictures folder. I am trying to back everything up because A - I want to try reformatting it and B - WD is sending me a new one. I will die if I lose my pictures, I am one of those people. ok so... when I try to copy the entire folder (23 gigs, 15 000 some odd photos) it freezes. I seem to be ok if I do it folder by folder until it gets to my .mov files, these are video I had taken with my Kodak camera. If I try to delete them (or anything from the WD disc) my PC freezes up. The system works a-ok until that bleeping drive is plugged in. I have been just doing it folder by folder. If it's plugged in when I start my Dell Inspiron 1521, it gives me the message that the G drive needs to be checked for consistency (what exactly does this message mean? h/w failure or s/w failure?). So I am letting it do that now (bad idea? good idea?) and it says it's recovering bad clusters in the files that seemed to make it freeze up. Also, when I tried using CDBurnerXP to burn pictures (can't use drag to disc because it freezes) it seems to work for some but then says it can't read the file location of certain photos and .mov files (the same ones that the recovery says it is repairing bad clusters on. I was just wondering if this startup repair will do more damage than good? I generally don't trust Windows... If this doesn't work what can I try? I would really like to be able to recover that video if possible, it's a lot of footage of my family, vacations, pets, etc. what in your opinion is this caused by? h/w failure or s/w complications? no s/w is installed on the drive, is this maybe why it won't read the .movs? Being that they are quicktime dependent? I should mention it's on FAT32... I should have formatted it before I started using it, I know... a year and a half of not doing tech support makes you forget the basics ;) Last edited by Darci; 05-07-2009 at 12:16 PM.

05-07-2009, 03:14 PM	#2 (permalink)
raptor_pa Mod Hardware Team Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Central PA Posts: 4,768 OS: XP	Re: serious troubles with my WD My Passport Essential 320 GB HD SOunds like bad clusters in that folder, perhaps in teh FAT directory for that folder. The chkdsk it is running now should be OK, tho I have had several drives come in for recovery after chkdsk worked it's magic. Let it finish tho, interrupting it is probably worse. as long as QT is installed it can play the images no matter where they are-and also wouldn't have any effect on copying the raw files. __________________