WD Elements SE 500GB - not initialized & Media Write Protect

[nasir150]

My external WD Elements SE 500GB (Model: WDBABV5000ABK-00) is working well for more than 1 years. Today for first time when I copy, it was exceeds more than 500GB. So i had to delete several Gig files from HDD and copy new movies/games from my friends. and Copy was success.
When I connected to my home PC, after few seconds, I hear one single click. My computer shows the drive letter, and when I enter the drive, explorer freeze to white & not responding. I tried to "Eject Mass Storage WD 1023", bhut that also not working. So I had to disconnect the cable.

That's it, after that my disaster starts...
Now My Win 7 detects the HDD, but no drive letter. Appears in "Disk Management" and asks for "Initialize" ans disk shows "Unallocated". When I say yes for "Initialize", it gives error: "The Media is Write Protected".

I searched lot of webs, forum, no concreate solution found. I tried solution with "thumbscrew", boot with linux, changing USB cable, etc. But still no luck. Tried other recovery software: "File Scavenger", but same result.

I have few other important files there. SO my first preference is to recover, if this would be difficult, then I wanna at least re-format & use as new. Can anyone help me?
/Nasir

Attachments

wd_error_screenshots.docx

wd_error_screenshots.docx

(141.31 KiB) Downloaded 705 times

[labtech]

It seems like you may have a hardware failure of some sort. Need a good diagnostic to determine the point of failure.
In order to achieve this, it is likely that one would need to remove the drive out of the external casing. If so, then the warranty will be voided, unless taken to a reputable data recovery company.

So, it really depends on what you want to do and at what expense.

[nasir150]

if file recovery is difficult, can i at least make it usable..

[SAjunky]

Purpose of moving drive to the native SATA interface is to get proper diagnose. If disk is recognised correctly you need to clone a disk by booting from bootable CD/USB with utility. Don't let to access this disk by Windows.
Yes file recovery is more difficult than cloning entire drive. After cloning, you do file recovery on the healtly drive.

[nasir150]

how to enable native SATA interface. My HDD was USB offcourse.

[labtech]

if file recovery is difficult, can i at least make it usable..

Maybe, maybe not. It all goes back to the first step in the process: evaluation/diagnostic to determine the failure(s).

Typically, these drives have an issue with the USB connector. If that is not the problem, then more than likely you have a bad sector issue and/or failed read/write mechanism. My guess is the latter, in which case a DIY is not feasible.

[seed.helper]

apart from the problem with write media protect....

my WD drive was working correctly in one day, and the next day it asks to format... damn it :/

But at least i had luck because the drive was fine with no bad sectors... using recuva i recovered almost all of my files

I am almost sure that the drive lost the partitrion table because of the external enclosure... im not using it now in the external enclosure but using it as backup drive connected to my pc

Well did you try recuva ?