Greetings HDDGuru Community!
From reading the other threads in this forum, it appears that I am simply reiterating the passport problems that many have already posted about, but I am still desperate enough to create a thread detailing my sad story as well. Here goes nothing...
I have a Western Digital Passport XMSB1600, and while it has served me well for almost 5 years (I bought it in 06') I believe that there is a critically unsolvable problem with it now. Just yesterday, after plugging it into a Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard, the drive would not mount, and I received an error message that "the disk you inserted is not readable by this computer." After opening Disk Utility, I found the drive available in the left disk column, but it was listed as a WD Drive with 2.2 TB of space. The disk was labeled as unformatted, with unallocated space. There were no repair options available in the First Aid Tab.
Undeterred, I removed the drive and plugged it into a Linux computer I have running Ubuntu. After opening the Disk Utility there, I found the exact same problem - 2.2TB, unknown data, no repair options, etc. By this point, I was really worried, so I plugged it into a Windows 7 and a Windows XP computer. The drive appeared as "Initio Default Controller" with Win 7, and appeared only as "WD" with XP. Interestingly enough, when XP identified the driver as WD, the drive actually became listed under the Disk Drive category in Device Manager. Yet the device still would not mount, and was not visible in My Computer. So I opened Computer Management, and while the drive did appear, it was only visible as - once again - a 2.2TB drive, and it advised me to recreate the MBR on it, which I would not do, as that would wipe the data off of it.
Once I had established that the drive wasn't working on several different computers with different OSes, with different USB ports, no less, I tried using two other different cables, with no luck. So I began more in depth troubleshooting:
I ran the WD Firmware Updater, but it simply didn't detect any external drives.
I ran the WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostic, and while it did recognize the WD Drive, and the drive did pass the Simple Test, when I ran the Advanced Test it failed, quoting bad sectors. I tried to have Lifeguard repair it, but it gave me Error Code 08, which, after I looked it up, means a Handling Failure. I'm not quite sure what that means, other than a problem with data transmission between the computer and the hard drive.
I ran Easus Data Recovery Wizard to attempt to find any sectors on the drive, but after running the drive all night - about 8 and a half hours, the Wizard was only a fraction of the way in, because the computer and the program believe it to be a 2 TB drive, so it is combing its way through this fabricated data.
I ran Easus Partition Master Home Edition, but again, I ran into similar problems: Easus thinks the drive is a 2 TB device with unallocated space, so it would take forever to run a scan on it or run a surface test.
I downloaded trusty TestDisk, but it only believed it was 2TB, and it couldn't find any lost partition even after I ran the Analyze command. When I asked it to do a more thorough search, it said that there was an error reading the cylinders, and nothing was found.
I called upon PhotoRec as well, but since it also recognized the drive as 2TB, the scan took forever. I had Photorec run for over 8 and a half hours, and it was still only 2% completed, as it went through all that so-called 2TB space that didn't even exist! It also gave me several errors when attempting to retrieve data from the sectors.
I ran Find and Mount, but it only found the drive as a 0GB WD, and it wasn't able to find any partitions after I did an in-depth scan. I had F&M create an image of the disc, but it was also only 0GB.
I ran Recover My Files, but the WD drive didn't appear, or it appeared as "no readable media."


As you can see, I am worried that I have exhausted all of my options, and that my only solution is to take the drive in to a professional and hope that I might recover my data that way. Because the drive is a WD enclosure, doesn't that mean that there is no ATA/SCI connection, only the USB port that I connect to the computer? If so, then a data recovery expert wouldn't be able to simply remove the drive and add it to a desktop, correct? My fear is that, if I can't access it with any software that I've tried, they might not be able to either, and an outright drive enclosure removal might not work.

Does anyone have any other suggestions for what I might be able to do with the drive, and if there are any methods that I might have overlooked? It is imperative that I recover this data at all costs, even if it means that the drive cannot be replaced, which I'm afraid is certainly the case. I can't even format or erase the drive at the moment, since it is not even mounting properly!

Don't underestimate what a really good data recovery professional can do. They have advanced tools and solutions even for those USB interface drives. Just make sure they know they are doing ad there are many who claim they do, but really don't.

Since you have read through the many treads, I guess you realized that there are several things that need to be checked out, so a proper diagnostic is mandatory.

My guess based on what you have described is that you have a bad sector and/or weak head(s). This is not a DIY.

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Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

Thank you for your prompt and helpful reply labtech! You're right, a good recovery professional could certainly get my data; I guess I'm just being worrisome. Absolutely, a diagnosis is what is needed to determine whether or not it is simply bad sectors, the hard drive itself is failing, or the USB connector went bad. I figured as much - I wouldn't dare open this drive myself, for fear of making a bad situation worse!

This is a smart man.