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Western Digital Woes

1K views 5 replies 2 participants last post by  Networks 
#1 · (Edited)
Hi geniuses!

I've been trying to sort out an issue I'm having for some time but, so far, I've failed to locate anyone with a solution. Hopefully someone here is smarter than everyone else I've asked!

So the item in question is my Western Digital 2.0TB External. Worked fine for a few months and then win7 can't see it. It shows in Devices as "Ext HDD 2021" but not in My Computer. It also shows in Disk Management as unallocated space. Right clicking only allows me to select properties or help and Initialize Disk is also grayed out.

I can't use chkdsk because I can't allocate a drive letter by any means I'm aware of.

I've also tried TestDisk but it can't find any partitions and just gets read errors even after a deeper search and changing the head values.

I know that it's unstable and I have backups of most of the stuff on there but I'd still like to use it on occasion. I'm sure I can recover some of what is lost after a quick format but how do I run a quick format on this inaccessible drive? Or perhaps there is some magical cure to my predicament?

Any help would be appreciated! :thumb:

[UPDATE]: So occasionally Initialize Disk becomes available but, when I click on it, Windows tells me the media is write protected. Hmm..
 
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#2 ·
Did you try to run the WD diagnostics against the drive. Did it get dropped or fall over the drive sounds bad and most of the WD enclosures have built in hardware encryption which makes the recovery harder in some cases impossible. Removing the drive is one option to rule out the on-board controller USB to SATA but encryption may get in the way and it voids the warranty. If you want data do not format the drive that just makes things 10 times more difficult. Try scanning with the demo version of R-Studio
 
#3 ·
Hi Networks!

Yes I've run WD Diagnostics and it tells me that there are too many bad sectors for either of the scans.

The drive has never been dropped or damaged since it came out of the box although I've considered defenestration few times!

I've just installed R-Studio and a scan is running now but each sector read seems to fail because the media is apparently write protected. I'm assuming this might be the WD encryption that you referred to?
 
#6 ·
working perfectly before ... your post doesn't indicate that condition ? Hard drives often fail 100% without any warning at all.

A pro may be able to recover the drive depending on the damage I don't think with the current reported errors its a DIY recovery. I suspect heads going/gone bad. These 2TB drives are not easy.
 
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