I have a Western Digital external 500gb hard drive (wd5000aavs) which I can no longer access the data. At first, I could visually see the data files when accessing the drive through "My Computer" but I could not access them. Then within two days after, the computer would no longer recognize the drive being present. Recently, I have tried several times to again access the drive - "My Computer" may or may not recognize the drive being present. When it does recognize the drive being present there is no data and it identifies 0bytes available. I do not hearing any "clicking" noises and it appears the drive is spinning. Any help would be appreciated - do you think this is a circuit board issue or a firmware issue?
I would really like to recover the data if at all possible.

Normally this issue is not a DIY but you can try one thing on this one. Attach this direct to the MB and if you can see it in the BIOS clone it to another HDD using DDRescue on this one.

Other wise you can contact: Starting on Weat Coast and moving to East Coast depending on where you are located

West Cost = thatdell guy
Centeral or sort of = jono
East Coast = Quaismodo

You will need one of them if this does not work

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Iorana Haraharaini

or you can contact anyone else who has a DDI in their toolset . Those symptoms could be related to several things, from failing heads, Relo-list to bad sectors.