Windows not able to read from My Passport Ultra

[ConzT]

Hello everyone!

I have a WD MyPassport Ultra 2TB which shows very strange behavior.

What I have observed so far:
- doesnt show up in explorer (as soon as I disconnect the drive,it shows as drive D
- I can see it in device Manager, tried to Update drivers but apparently up to date drivers are installed
- downloaded WD DriverUpdater from the official site, doesnt recognize the drive
- when connecting the HDD first and then opening diskmgmt, diskmgmt Loads indefinitly
- when first opening diskmgmt and then connecting the HDD, it does show the disk after some time with the diskspace but i cant edit its properties,etc....


I dont have a lot of in depth knowledge on how HDDs work and am looking for your opinions on what the issue might be and if there is a possibility to try saveing the data myself. Im a network engineer and work with data but I usually only make sure to deliver it to your drives properly... hehe
I have no clue about what the issue might be but are there any lower level cli tools I can work with and teach myself? I feel comfortable with clis and usually read help Pages enough to understand what to do and what not do do. Id love to dive into this topic but if its too much of a hastle I'll contact a professional!

Thanks for your help!

 

[pclab]

Usually what I do is open the enclosure and convert the drive from USB PCB to SATA PCB for better control.
After that, I try to diagnose it.
Do you hear strange noises/clicks? or does it spin OK?
Could be a FW problem or a physical problem.

 

[ConzT]

Thanks for your help @pclab and sorry for my late response!
I removed the drive from its case but havent tried to convert it to SATA yet, need to read into that

I do hear the drive spinning but also hear some clicks or scratching in a very steady rythm.. As if the head moves forth and back maybe?

Can I open the Harddisk further to investigate the head?

 

[ConzT]

Hey, so I just opened the HD and to my surprise, the head doesnt move at all. When I opened it, the head was in its initial position. The platters are spinning normally and at least the platter I can see isnt scratched at all. This is atleast a good thing I guess?

But the behavior changed even before I opened it up. I can now open diskmgmt without any getting stuck, I see the drive and can click on initialize but then it fails with an error message(critical device failure)
So thats a new one... and not sure its a good sign since I assume that in the beginning, the head was atleast moving?

[glow=red]Moderator Note:[/glow]
[highlight=yellow]Do not attempt anything that this user did. This is a perfect case study in everything you should not try when doing data recovery.[/highlight]

 

[slingshot]

Hey, so I just opened the HD and to my surprise, the head doesnt move at all. When I opened it, the head was in its initial position. The platters are spinning normally and at least the platter I can see isnt scratched at all. This is atleast a good thing I guess?

But the behavior changed even before I opened it up. I can now open diskmgmt without any getting stuck, I see the drive and can click on initialize but then it fails with an error message(critical device failure)
So thats a new one... and not sure its a good sign since I assume that in the beginning, the head was atleast moving?

If you value your data, keep the lid on the drive, stop spinning it up and trying to force it to give you its contents, and send it to a professional.

 

[Jared]

[post]16507[/post] so I just opened the HD

Bad idea!

[post]16507[/post] the head doesnt move at all

That's because the lid is removed. Two of the screws that go through the cover also put pressure against the preamp connector. You are fortunate it didn't move because with the lid removed the aerodynamics are thrown off and can cause permanent platter damage instantly.

[post]16507[/post] his is atleast a good thing I guess?

No, it's not.

[post]16507[/post] I see the drive and can click on initialize

Why on earth would you want to create a new partition table on a drive you are trying to recover?

In this single post, you have effectively written a manual on [glow=red]everything NOT TO DO[/glow] when recovering data.

 

[bledaone]

But the behavior changed even before I opened it up. I can now open diskmgmt without any getting stuck, I see the drive and can click on initialize but then it fails with an error message(critical device failure)

Huh? Initialize? Wouldn't this destroy all of the data inside the disk?

 

[Jared]

[post]16545[/post] Wouldn't this destroy all of the data inside the disk?

It wouldn't destroy all data, but it would create a new partition table and further complicate recovery later.