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General discussion

Problems with WD external hard drive

Jan 13, 2011 12:20PM PST

18 months ago I bought a WD external hard drive to run with my desktop computer and my laptop, both run XP. At first both machines recognised the drive as soon as I would plug the usb in, although every time I plugged it in I received a warning that it would run at lower performance because my usb ports were not 2.0 ports but that was okay. I didn't realise apparently this drive is one that is designed to keep a sort of copy of the current or latest state the computer's hard drive is in, not really what I wanted an external hard drive for, I wanted it to put all my music, photos, data files etc on, to save storage on my computers, so I would plug it in and when it would ask me what I wanted to do I just select 'view files and folders' (this is after I had saved all my music, photos, documents etc to it). So in the past few months when I have plugged it in, both my computers go through the motions of reading that there is a device, trying to open it, and I see the grey rectangular box with those green squares going left to right with words flying by on top of that, that are obviously the names of files on it being read, when it finishes doing that, the box asking me what I want to do comes up for only a second then collapses before I get to see it and select what I want to do then starts all over again. But the worst problem is the past couple of weeks when it is attached it does an appearing then disappearing 'dance' from 'My Computer' where all the drives are listed, and when it appears, if I am quick enough to click on it, instead of showing me my files etc, it comes up with a message like 'disk is not formatted, do you want to format it now?'. The first time it asked me that I clicked on Yes but then it warned me that if I continued it would wipe all the data off the drive and did I want to continue so of course I clicked NO! and when I click on No that box disappears but there is a smaller box directly underneath it that appears and says that the drive is not recognised or available or cannot be read. Every photo I have, all my music (and not just CDs that I can reinstall but music from other people and from the internet etc that is irreplaceable) as well as univesity assignments, documents, old emails and chats and even whole movies are on this WD external drive so any help to figure out how to get it to operate properly and let me access my stuff would be greatly and urgently appreciated. Also since Christmas I have bought a new Lenovo laptop running Windows 7 and when I Plugged the external drive into it the computer recognised that there was a new device but again only came up with something saying it wasnt formatted and asked me if I wanted to format it, so again I said No. Please Help.

Discussion is locked

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Ext. HDs recovery
Jan 13, 2011 11:08PM PST

Use of any ext. storage after time becomes problematic. You should have used a USB 2.0 port and usually that refers to rear one. That way, it's slightly faster but importantly the port is better "power supplied" since its directly from the mtrbd. itself rather that some added connection. Next, your issues are typical but results are what to be expected of any storage device, it has to acknowledge those files and it reads them, etc. to provide a listing and as that listings gets bigger, it takes more time. On top of all that, you MUST dismount the ext. HD properly, otherwise sooner or later you corrupt it. Those ext. HDs are simple devices and minor power is needed and any slight change in power can hurt it.

Learn from this don't allow the ext. HD to be the sole suppository of you data, save to discs as well. WD, may have recovery s/w but at least they do some "diags" get them and use the "non-destructive tests" to see what's going on. If you like try the recovery s/w that is out there. but the more *you* play with it the cumbersome it becomes should it be true h/w fault or further corruption in attempts to recover.

http://www.ehow.com/how_4474341_recover-data-external-hard-drive.html

tada -----Willy Happy

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Thanks for reply, will try link.
Jan 14, 2011 4:53PM PST

Thanks for your reply Willy. Just to reply to a couple of things you mention early in your answer, I didnt have any usb 2.0 ports to use on either my laptop or my desktop computer, both of them being pre 2003 so I just used the ports that were available, and also when I first used them it didnt come up with that error, not for a few months after I started using the external hard drive anyway. Not sure what you mean by dismount the external hard drive properly, it doesnt have an on/off switch or anything like that, not even a power source, you just plug the usb into the usb port in the computer, all the ports on both computers produced the same results. There were no instructions or warnings on the packaging or anywhere telling me not to power up or power down with it plugged in so I assumed it was okay to do that, to just leave it in. I just wanted something to store all my stuff on because my computers were getting full and therefore very slow. I also know a couple of people who have all their 'stuff' on an external hard drive similar to mine for about 5 years and have never had a problem, so again I thought it was fine to just use it to easily access all my media, data files etc. I don't know if that clarifies the situation I am in or not but I hope it does. Anyway thanks for that link. I will check it out, and also know to ask more questions next time I go to buy any additional hardware devices. If anyone else has further or different advice that would also be appreciated, so thanks again everyone.

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Tried link you sent
Jan 21, 2011 2:04PM PST

I tried the link you sent to the recovery software, downloaded it etc, but when I selected the drive I wanted it to check, the green check mark did not light up so I couldnt click on that check mark to activate the check and fix process. Not sure why but now am back to square one, so to speak. Am going to email the newsletter directly asking for help, but meanwhile if anyone sees this and has a solution please post it! Thanks.

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Filerecovery pgm.
Feb 6, 2011 12:48PM PST

Sorry for the late reply, I had thought you've figured it out by now. If the pgm. hangs or simply doesn't work, -OR- it shows some repair BUT requires you to pay, then that's common for such pgms. a demo of it wares sorta speak.

Look or google for this one: PCI_filerecovery try from another source if possible

The above does work, but if you have true h/w fault it won't help in the long run.

tada -----Willy Happy

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(NT) BTW, Filerecovery pgm. is freeware
Feb 7, 2011 3:36AM PST