HD help.

Jon_01

Has anyone a suggestion on how to fix this?

I've a 1tb WD 2.5 ext drive.
Spins up fine, no odd sounds ect. But when plugged into a pc, while it's found, it won't appear in explorer, but will appear in the disconnected section of the tool bar.

If it's plugged into the pc and then pc is restarted it'll show and open in explorer but after a few minutes it'll disconnect on it own and won't reconnect.

Can anyone think of a temp fix so I can off load the files?

Thanks...

dan958

I'll just take it thaty ou have tried different usb port and cable.

There is probably a much easier way to do this, but I would probably just boot up a usb of linux and see if that picks it up.


Does the drive appear in Disk Management in Windows?

Jon_01

dan958 wrote: »

I'll just take it thaty ou have tried different usb port and cable.

There is probably a much easier way to do this, but I would probably just boot up a usb of linux and see if that picks it up.


Does the drive appear in Disk Management in Windows?

I should have put that! yes, all 4 usb ports on the pc and 3 leads. Same result.
Shows in Disk Manager sometimes, I can't work out what the factors are...

I'll get a live Linux disc and try that.

Rodders53

Try using WD's Data Lifeguard diagnostic tool. https://support-en.wd.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/6226

Likely the HDD is expiring though? Trouble is the more times you power it up the more damage can be done.

Others may be along with ways of imaging the failing disk with suitable utilities (and big enough disks in your PC/laptop) in order to recover your data. (Which should have been backed up, of course).

that

there is a reason why usb drive cables are short and thick, and that it to deliver as much power as possible with the minimum volt drop. I am not saying this is definitely your problem, but it is worth a punt

googler

There's two possibilities, if we rule out the PC itself as being faulty;

Firstly, the drive is in a case with some USB electronics, and a SATA hard drive.

Either the drive itself is faulty, or the USB/SATA link is.

One option is (if you have a desktop PC with a spare SATA port on the motherboard) to split the casing open, extract the HDD itself, and connect it internally to the PC. You may need extra internal power and SATA cabling to do this.

If the drive itself is good, and the USB electronics are at fault, all will work fine.

If it doesn't work that way, you've established the fault lies with the drive itself, and moving on from there will probably need the drive manufacturer's diagnostic and recovery tools (downloadable from their website).

Since the external branding is WD, we can probably presume the drive within to be a WD one, but probably best to wait until you've split the case open and seen the maker's mark before downloading anything....

molerat

These drives are often formatted non standard so may not work correctly without the WD hardware.