WD passport essential SE drives 750GB

[estoni]

Is someone of you experienced at this type of drives?
The drive work reasonably a few weeks, but suddenly corrupted and it stops detecting windows MHDD indicates that the disc does not answer.
These discs are native USB since they take embebed the interface USB instead of a interface board as, it is habitual.
Any comment will be welcome

[fzabkar]

I'm not a DR guy, but some obvious questions would be ...

Does the drive spin up?

Does it buzz or vibrate as if trying to spin up?

Did you drop it or overvolt it?

Can you see the USB-SATA bridge with Microsft's UVCView?
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/USB_ID ... ew.x86.exe

... or lsusb?
http://linuxcommand.org/man_pages/lsusb8.html
http://sourceforge.net/projects/linux-u ... /usbutils/

[poehere]

Yap it is your board giving you problems probably put too much stress on that USB connector or like other post it fell a short distance with the USB cable attached to it or another one. Sorry this is not one you can fix on your own.

[estoni]

The drive is spin out, do not have any different sound, and is not drop it, just is was working making a backup, and some time later appears a error the drive the medium is disconnected and never more it works.
If you wait 2 day's and try to connect the drive, is recognized by the computer but I can't access to it, for try to download a firmware one other time, just see the drive but after this is impossible to access to it.
The led is constantly blinking, when the drive is not detected, but is fix on when it is detected.
The I use the original cable, maybe the stress in the sub is the problems but I totally out of resources to access to it.

[estoni]

After analyzing the USB, really do not detects the drive or the virtual CD-Rom, it seems the USB is death. I try tomorrow if the drive has recognized.

[fzabkar]

After analyzing the USB, really do not detects the drive or the virtual CD-Rom, it seems the USB is death. I try tomorrow if the drive has recognized.

A lot of people at WDC's forums are reporting bad connection issues with the USB socket.

BTW, some USB bridge chips will identify themselves even if the drive is absent. I have a JMicron based enclosure that behaves this way. However, other chips, or perhaps even the same chip with different firmware, will not identify themselves unless they can detect the drive. Maybe your Passport falls into the latter category.

[estoni]

Maybe the problem is not identify the drive and in this way do not connects, but why if I waith 2 days it works? (just detect the drive). is quitte extrage, mi intuition tel me that's a intermitent failure in the USB chip, I do not if the 12 pins at side of the USB are SATA interface, or equivalent.

[fzabkar]

Maybe the problem is not identify the drive and in this way do not connects, but why if I waith 2 days it works? (just detect the drive). is quitte extrage, mi intuition tel me that's a intermitent failure in the USB chip, I do not if the 12 pins at side of the USB are SATA interface, or equivalent.

Can you upload a detailed photo of the PCB, or at least post the markings on the USB-SATA bridge chip?

Next time you get the drive to show up (?), try to retrieve its SMART report. The following SMART utilities can work with some USB bridge chips.

HD Sentinel (DOS / Windows / Linux):
http://www.hdsentinel.com/

HDDScan for Windows:
http://hddscan.com/

smartmontools (Linux / Windows):
http://sourceforge.net/projects/smartmontools/files/
http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/smartm ... i/Download

[estoni]

Hi, today I put the drive in a plastic bag, inside the refrigerator with a anti humidity bags, I conect the drive to the PC and at this moment I can acces to the drive, I download the lates firmware, and I start to copy the information, for the moment is working well.
When finishin the copy of data I try to get a SMART report and the chipset, I suppose the problem is caused by temperature in the USB chip.