Need to Recover Data from WD Passport External HD

Thanks all, leaning toward futur's recommendation, but will try teskdisk. Thanks sibbil.

Hi there
As a last resort I see that Windows hasn't assigned the drive a letter.
Just try in Computer management to assign a letter (Change / add Drive letter).

Can't do any harm and you *Might* just get lucky.

Cheers
jimbo

Install Partition Wizard Home edition, rightclick on the HD to Check File System. You may have to Add a drive letter in PW first.

If this fails try a Surface Scan of drive. Then File System check again.

Last resort is to take drive out of case, install into a laptop to run HD Diagnostic extended CD scan to see if it can repair the HD.

Any of these may repair it enough to copy out data. If not try Recuva - Features

gregrocker said:

Install Partition Wizard Home edition, rightclick on the HD to Check File System. You may have to Add a drive letter in PW first.

If this fails try a Surface Scan of drive. Then File System check again.

Last resort is to take drive out of case, install into a laptop to run HD Diagnostic extended CD scan to see if it can repair the HD.

Any of these may repair it enough to copy out data. If not try Recuva - Features

Maybe, but the "No Media" error seems to be like Windows can see the controller, but not the drive. It would be like trying to do a disk scan on a CD drive with no CD inserted.

Installed the Partition Wizard. It does recognize Disk 2 (Passport) It will take almost an hour to scan.

Thanks all. Will report results, probably later tonight or tomorrow.

Watch for the autorun box to pop up which will mean that it has been repaired enough to access - let it complete anyway.

It is a partition and not Unallocated Space if it accepted a drive letter and is Checking File System. Looking good.

torre, you may have overthought the problem and process.

I had one Passport. When I bought another Passport of the same size, the PC rejected the second saying it's sharing the same ID as the first. ???

After giving up initially and working around it by using it singularly, I tried again and went into disk management as you did. This time, I right-clicked the unrecognized Passport and selected one of the options (it may have been allocation). While I was at it, I also changed the name and drive letter. It's been working cooperatively ever since without loss of data from the allocation.

Thanks greg. Only prob this is a 500GB drive, estimated time to complete is approx 5 hrs.

Before starting scan, I did a partial recover operation with the wizard which indicated the files were there.

But do you think my problem of the disk not being recognized is disk error or a power issue with the usb controller ? Thanks !

gigagiggles said:

torre, you may have overthought the problem and process.

I had one Passport. When I bought another Passport of the same size, the PC rejected the second saying it's sharing the same ID as the first. ???

After giving up initially and working around it by using it singularly, I tried again and went into disk management as you did. This time, I right-clicked the unrecognized Passport and selected one of the options (it may have been allocation). While I was at it, I also changed the name and drive letter. It's been working cooperatively ever since without loss of data from the allocation.

Thanks for the reply, but my problem is the Passport is not recognized and can't be accessed.

Also, I can't find the option to assign a drive letter to disk 2 (passport)

torre said:

Before starting scan, I did a partial recover operation with the wizard which indicated the files were there.

But do you think my problem of the disk not being recognized is disk error or a power issue with the usb controller ? Thanks !

This info, along with the screenshot you posted, makes it appear as though there is nothing wrong at all with your external drive (physical/electronics).

But system data at the very beginning of the drive got corrupted somehow. The data located there is necessary to allow the OS to access anything on the drive.

Is it possible that it was unplugged while files were still being written to it?