2 brand new hard drives 1Tb western digital 2.5 hdd usb's working perfect. put all my photos on it and everything
using it for a week and now i cant open it it doesnt even show up
only shows as unmounted or not itilized in disk manager all the recovery programs i have tried say
FAILED due to write protection
wtf... ???

example --> attached

Well thats usb drives for you. I bought samsung s2 drives used it once and it did what you have - repalced it like for like - the 2nd replacement did the same! 3rd one seems ok now.

It may seem stupid and trivial but have you tried a different usb cable - its highly unlikely - but the highly unlikey stuff seems to work sometimes.
You said you used it to store data - but is it important? to recover I mean- if not just swap them at the shop you got it.
Is your WD the very slim one with the USB port built onto the hdd pcb? you might not know unless you open it-but i dont think you want to void the warranty.
It gives an error on read and says its write protect - so unless you put some password on the drive i would say something went wrong with the pcb.

_________________
It seems that the unluckiest people in the world are those that don't backup.
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its under warranty yes. but im not worried bout the money side of it. or the warranty. its got my whole life on there. memories and photos and they just all gone now. i could send it to a specialist and they want $2,200 to recover it and im thinking if worse comes to worse ill pay that but im looking for other solutions for now... its a joke. never buy western digital again... let alone external drives.

Yea I see you in Australia- you got limited choice for DR specialists. For that amount of cash i bet you could DHL your disk to EU and get it fixed half price. But sending your life across the ocean is a bit scary.

Who quoted you - maybe somebody on this forum can recommend a s specialist near you. Im not familiar with Au.

I have learnt to appreciate internet space such as DropBox, picasaweb to store files dear to me- even me as a DR specialist i dont trust HDD's any more. Its not what it used to be. Just a stupid bug in code can wipe cause you too loose all data - sometimes irreversible.. or you need a 2nd mortgage to recover.

_________________
It seems that the unluckiest people in the world are those that don't backup.
Free Solutions
Picasaweb- Pictures and movies | Dropbox - Documents and other..

Boss ,
We Have fzakbar From Australia Here i guess .

_________________
Regards
Amarbir S Dhillon , Chandigarh Data Recovery Labs [India]
Logical,Semi Physical And Physical Data Recovery
Website-> http://www.chandigarhdatarecovery.com

@d3f3cted:
Hi, I have a similar problem with Toshiba Stor.E Art 1.5TB... all my life on it and... ugr... and as long as it is not a mechanical failure...
I'm trying to ressurect the data myself, since I already know the data recovery costs here in central Europe... it's size depending and with 1.5TB... it'd cost dearly... I'd have to pay almost five my monthly salaries in full for 1.5TB HDD recovery regardless how much data on it... (a value of 2-3 years old pre-owned car, so to say)... no way...
So, since the external USB HDD is listed in Disk manager and the Explorer sees it too, and it allows me to 'access' the data, but lets me not read it nor copy/move (allows delete) so I tried a free recovery SW from Piriform (google leads to it ). It has recovered a lot of my data to another HDD. I am experimenting with the settings so I can't give the exact instruction, but a great part of my data is now safe and secure on another disk...
since I have also the cross-linked clusters reported on the 1.5TB Toshiba (which is actually Samsung...) I let it check with the Windows' Checkdisk utility. The Checkdisk is now for 17 hours in Phase4 (Datacheck) and should be 'soon' over, but then comes the Phase5 (empty space check)... So, now I can't tell for how many more days I will not turn my PC off, but... after the Checkdisk is over completely, i will give it another try with data digging via Piriform stuff... and I also discovered that IObit has a recovery/undelete tool... so will fiddle with it later too. maybe will find yet another 'ressurection' tools...
I am almost certain it is a Firmware problem, but I will dig as much of my data as possible and then get rid of it either through replacement or money back... any HDD above 1TB inclusive is just way too insecure...
So fingers crossed and good luck...
it's been 3 days so far and not over yet, just halfway... but free of charge...

what concerns HDD-makes I've had :
a total failure and total data loss by Seagate Barracuda 320GB
a partial data loss by WD Blue Caviar 500GB
and now this Toshiba/Samsung 1.5TB...
...still, the best experience only with Seagate...

hey guys cheers four post with those new 1tb terrabyte drives you cant remove the case and connect it to the pc because its not a sata or ide connection its just a weird plug connector look at western digital 1tb 2.5 enclosure its weird ayyy nothing i ever seen before but i tried that and nothing doesnt work on mac or lynix or anything any ideas ?

12 Pin Header With USb and INIC IC

_________________
Regards
Amarbir S Dhillon , Chandigarh Data Recovery Labs [India]
Logical,Semi Physical And Physical Data Recovery
Website-> http://www.chandigarhdatarecovery.com

d3f3cted check your PM

Sir ,
You Have Some Information on these usb drives i have done some homework on these three to fours days back ,Have Two Cases and Still working on them

_________________
Regards
Amarbir S Dhillon , Chandigarh Data Recovery Labs [India]
Logical,Semi Physical And Physical Data Recovery
Website-> http://www.chandigarhdatarecovery.com

yeah i dunno i contact western digital level 2 support and they cant even help its fucked.
mind my language
i dunno what else to do

i tried disk part
i tried removing the disk from the case and putting the same drive that works brand new chip
i tried different operating systems.
i tried registry removal key or write protection and policies
i tried different computers, different cables...
running out of ideas
ANYONE ???

where can i get this from ??