Any hope for this external drive?

[Neo Elemental]

I have a WD external HDD that was recently working, but now seems to be FUBAR. Please help me!

Some details:

I am using Windows 7 64-bit. The hard drive used to work perfectly. The drive does NOT emit any clicking noises. The status light for the HDD lights up and I can hear the drive spinning.

When I plug in the drive, it shows up in My Computer, but as Windows tries to index it or catalog it or something, I get the green taskbar of death, which just slowly times out as it fills up. Double clicking on the drive will cause it to hang.

I can see the drive in the Device Manager as a WDD External HDD, but trying to use Disk Management will cause it to hang. As soon as I turn off the drive, Disk Management will stop hanging and the internal drive will pop up right away.

Chkdsk also hangs when run on the drive. It just goes to the next line and doesn't output anything. I ran it for a night and nothing happened.

I've tried a few file recovery programs, and they all hang on trying to recognize the drive. I haven't tried taking the drive out of the enclosure and plugging it in directly because it's IDE and my computer only has SATA inputs.

Thanks everyone!

[thatdellguy]

Your computer is detecting the external case and not the drive inside. Either wait for super duper fukazubar to come along with some DIY solution or send it to a professional.

[mattbrad2]

Does it recognize the drive itself or are you just saying Windows recognizes a USB device has been attached? Probably bad sectors in the MFT / bitmap of the drive. Windows is hanging because it doesn't know how to timeout when this happens. Were you needing data off the drive? In either case, you'll need to replace the drive itself.

[harddrivespecialist]

Could be bad/damaged sectors that causing your drive to hang.
If it was dropped, then it definitely has internal damages.

Could be relatively inexpensive recovery at the moment.

[Neo Elemental]

I haven't dropped the drive between when it worked and stopped working, but it could be something physical I guess. I do want to recover the data on the drive itself...I don't really care about the external itself. Any additional help is welcome! I am open to sending it somewhere I guess, but would just like some help diagnosing it before I take the step to send it away.

[mattbrad2]

The only way to diagnose the drive properly is to remove it from its external enclosure. There are some good guides online but of course if your not careful you can end up with a drive in a lot worse shape. Verify that it can be seen in your computers BIOS and boot off a diagnostic CD such as hirens that includes HDD diagnostic software such as Victoria or MHDD. These will run a surface scan on the drive to check its health. I'm guessing you'll get some timeouts early on.

[fzabkar]

Your computer is detecting the external case and not the drive inside. Either wait for super duper fukazubar to come along with some DIY solution or send it to a professional.

Clearly the OP shouldn't entrust his/her precious data to you. A real professional would understand that, if an external drive shows up in My Computer, then it is the hard drive itself, not just the bridge board that is being detected.

[thatdellguy]

I still stand by my post. Hope that doesn't upset you.

[fzabkar]

I still stand by my post. Hope that doesn't upset you. :beer:

Don't just stand by it, hang on to it.

[thatdellguy]

[fzabkar]

:?:

http://image.shutterstock.com/display_p ... 029159.jpg

[Neo Elemental]

I have no problems removing the drive and running a diagnostic on it, except that I have no access to a IDE motherboard anymore. Does anybody have a IDE to SATA adapter that they like/trust? Most of what I've seen have some horror stories attached to them.

That being said, if the adapter costs $30 and recovery from someone for a logical error is in the low hundreds, then is it really worth going down that path? Let's say I do run the diagnostic and they time out, then wouldn't I have to send it in anyhow?

[Vulcan]

I have no problems removing the drive and running a diagnostic on it, except that I have no access to a IDE motherboard anymore. Does anybody have a IDE to SATA adapter that they like/trust? Most of what I've seen have some horror stories attached to them.

Personally I wouldn't attempt to use an IDE-to-SATA adapter, for the reasons you've said. Instead, I've used a PCI-to-IDE interface card (I don't know if they're available for PCI-E also) - cheap, simple, reliable. Perhaps you could consider that option?

Make sure to test any new interface (IDE-to-SATA adapter or PCI-to-IDE interface card) on another drive first, so that you know it works - otherwise you're just adding another unknown piece of hardware, and you could be misled if it is also faulty.

Another advantage of attaching direct to the drive, as well as allowing you to use other diagnostic software to better evaluate the state of the drive, is that it eliminates the USB enclosure as the source of the current problem. [Oops, I double-checked and saw that mattbrad2 already said that - oh well, I've typed it now anyway, so just agreeing with you there ]

That being said, if the adapter costs $30 and recovery from someone for a logical error is in the low hundreds, then is it really worth going down that path?

Based on your description of the behaviour, I do not expect this to be a logical (i.e. corrupted filesystem) problem (or at least, not only that) - in my experience, a corrupted filesystem would not cause recovery programs to fail to recognise the drive, which you described earlier.

If you are comfortable with Linux, then seeing the dmesg output after attaching the drive still in its USB enclosure, would help to clarify what initial errors are being detected.

Alternatively, if Win7 is anything like earlier Windows versions (I haven't touched Win7 myself :shudder:), then I'd hope that there would be some entries in the Windows system event log, for example, when you are seeing Disk Management hanging etc.. Decoding those event IDs (e.g. ID9, ID11 etc.) may confirm my suspicion that this is not just a logical problem.

Let's say I do run the diagnostic and they time out, then wouldn't I have to send it in anyhow?

Unfortunately correct - welcome to the world of DIY. Everything you do could be a waste of your time/money, if you are unsuccessful and need to involve a pro eventually anyway. There is also a risk (depending on what the actual problem is) that you've made recovery harder (i.e. more expensive) in that DIY process.

[mattbrad2]

That being said, if the adapter costs $30 and recovery from someone for a logical error is in the low hundreds, then is it really worth going down that path? Let's say I do run the diagnostic and they time out, then wouldn't I have to send it in anyhow?

Yes. I sent you a pm, btw.

Before proceeding with logical recovery however its important you verify that the drive is being recognized properly in the BIOS and/or Windows and its reporting its size correctly.

[harddrivespecialist]

I haven't dropped the drive between when it worked and stopped working, but it could be something physical I guess. I do want to recover the data on the drive itself...I don't really care about the external itself. Any additional help is welcome! I am open to sending it somewhere I guess, but would just like some help diagnosing it before I take the step to send it away.

If you will decide to send your drive out, I can offer to do diagnostics for you for $29.00, plus return shipping.
We will provide firm quote along with diagnostics.

We are 200 miles NE of NYC.

[Neo Elemental]

@mattbrad2 Would you normally be able to see USB externals in BIOS?

@Vulcan I'm not super comfortable with Linux, but I can follow the hell out of a FAQ or walkthrough. If you could point me in the right direction, I would be happy to come back with diagnostic results. I'm just worried that the fact that the drive is an external and that I don't have an IDE slot will be troublesome.

[drc]

@mattbrad2 Would you normally be able to see USB externals in BIOS?

No

[mattbrad2]

Would you normally be able to see USB externals in BIOS?

No, afraid not. When in Windows via USB, does it recognize the drive from within Explorer / My Computer and report its drive size properly?

[Neo Elemental]

@mattbrad2

The drive shows up as a generic WD drive in Device Manager (something like WD3200 which indicates the size), but it only shows up as Local Drive in Explorer.