I have a WD Passport Essential External 500 GB HDD. It slipped out of my hand and fell, I then immediately connected to it my laptop and thankfully it worked. I used it for a few days when one day all of a sudden it sopped working. Its icon would just show in My computer but size/free space wont show. It wont show in Disk Management either, but for a few times it did show up there too. Anyhow, i was able to recover my data by using testdisk-6.14.win, all of it. Now i want to ask, it testdisk software can recover my data, why wont the HD work normally? I have also used UVCView.x86 and it shows the following which is Greek to me:

---===>Device Information<===---
English product name: "My Passport 071A"

ConnectionStatus:
Current Config Value: 0x01 -> Device Bus Speed: High
Device Address: 0x02
Open Pipes: 2

===>Endpoint Descriptor<===
bLength: 0x07
bDescriptorType: 0x05
bEndpointAddress: 0x81 -> Direction: IN - EndpointID: 1
bmAttributes: 0x02 -> Bulk Transfer Type
wMaxPacketSize: 0x0200 = 0x200 max bytes
bInterval: 0x00

===>Endpoint Descriptor<===
bLength: 0x07
bDescriptorType: 0x05
bEndpointAddress: 0x02 -> Direction: OUT - EndpointID: 2
bmAttributes: 0x02 -> Bulk Transfer Type
wMaxPacketSize: 0x0200 = 0x200 max bytes
bInterval: 0x00

===>Device Descriptor<===
bLength: 0x12
bDescriptorType: 0x01
bcdUSB: 0x0200
bDeviceClass: 0x00 -> This is an Interface Class Defined Device
bDeviceSubClass: 0x00
bDeviceProtocol: 0x00
bMaxPacketSize0: 0x40 = (64) Bytes
idVendor: 0x1058 = Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
idProduct: 0x071A
bcdDevice: 0x2019
iManufacturer: 0x01
English (United States) "Western Digital"
iProduct: 0x02
English (United States) "My Passport 071A"
iSerialNumber: 0x03
English (United States) "575836314137305938333639"
bNumConfigurations: 0x01

===>Configuration Descriptor<===
bLength: 0x09
bDescriptorType: 0x02
wTotalLength: 0x0020 -> Validated
bNumInterfaces: 0x01
bConfigurationValue: 0x01
iConfiguration: 0x00
bmAttributes: 0x80 -> Bus Powered
MaxPower: 0xFA = 500 mA

===>Interface Descriptor<===
bLength: 0x09
bDescriptorType: 0x04
bInterfaceNumber: 0x00
bAlternateSetting: 0x00
bNumEndpoints: 0x02
bInterfaceClass: 0x08 -> This is a Mass Storage USB Device Interface Class
bInterfaceSubClass: 0x06
bInterfaceProtocol: 0x50
iInterface: 0x00

===>Endpoint Descriptor<===
bLength: 0x07
bDescriptorType: 0x05
bEndpointAddress: 0x81 -> Direction: IN - EndpointID: 1
bmAttributes: 0x02 -> Bulk Transfer Type
wMaxPacketSize: 0x0200 = 0x200 max bytes
bInterval: 0x00

===>Endpoint Descriptor<===
bLength: 0x07
bDescriptorType: 0x05
bEndpointAddress: 0x02 -> Direction: OUT - EndpointID: 2
bmAttributes: 0x02 -> Bulk Transfer Type
wMaxPacketSize: 0x0200 = 0x200 max bytes
bInterval: 0x00

When you dropped the drive on the floor it would have damaged one of the many heads that read your data of the spinning disk that is inside. The fact that the drive failed partly after a few days showed that the damaged head could have been scratching the disk while its in operation. Luckily you managed to recover your files.

The drive is not safe to use now and its very unlikely it will be stable again. If the drive is still in warranty you might as well get a new one, otherwise a new disk is a must. I wouldn't use that disk again.

Shane

Yeah, I was lucky to get my data back. It had pics of my kids since the day they were born and it was precious to me than anything else in the world. I tried few other recovery softwares but they didnt work as they wont recognize the external HDD. This testdisk-6.14.win was a life saver, although it takes about 10 minutes to recognize the drive but then it would list all the files and I can recover (just like copy) them to a new place, and it's a free software

I dont plan to use this HDD anymore, primarily as it wont work as it doesnt open from My Computer and secondly, even if it did, I wont depend upon it to hold my important files. I have already bought another 1 TB external HDD as this one was out of warranty.

But the question remains, if testdisk can read the drive, why cant it be read by windows? It just give me hope that the HDD is not completely lost and may be if it can be read again by windows, may be i can also recover the unnecessary files from the HDD which i skipped as they were not important with ease.