WD My Passport Ultra - can't access drive

B0bbyEwing

So I've only recently found out that drives can lose their data in an unpowered state. I completely wasn't aware of this being a thing at all. I was under the impression that if data was written to a drive & that drive was put in a drawer then (so long as the room wasn't subject to extreme temperatures) that drive would be fine.

Only just learned this week that not to be the case.

So I've been connecting various drives (USB flash, SD card, passport drives) to see what the situation is. Some seem ok, others I've found out that this thing isn't a myth & I've lost data. What I've found so far isn't bad but I'm sure somewhere I'll have lost important stuff & it's probably on the drive in question.

All the other ones so far will connect when I plug them in to a USB drive & they then either produce files that will open or files that wont & then files that are semi-working (as in half a picture).

This WD Passport Ultra though - I connect it & you can hear it whirring & clicking away like the computer is trying to find it but then it gives up.

I go to Disk Management & it wants me to initialise the drive. I check whether that will erase the drive & Google says yes so I don't.

To my knowledge, these drives are mechanical, whereas the other drives (USB, flash) are not. So why would this drive, having been put in the drawer being A-ok, now suddenly not be ok? I can't even comment when this was last connected to a PC. I'd say within the past 10 years at a guess.

Is there any way to access whatever is on this drive or is it totally done for?

TadleyBaggie

Possibly a component on the electronics board failed when powered on, failures happen.

Sam_666

Physical disk drives are made of magnetic material. This can wear out or loose mgnetic properties due to exposure.
If you want long term storage, use RAM dvd disk. Google.

wongataa

So why would this drive, having been put in the drawer being A-ok, now suddenly not be ok?

Because electronics and mechanical things can fail.

Is there any way to access whatever is on this drive or is it totally done for?

You could send it to a specialist data recovery service who will likely be able to extract the data. This won't be cheap. You could try putting the drive in a freezer for a while to get it nice and cold and then plugging it in and hoping that it works long enough to copy the data off it.

Ayr_Rage

If it's continuously whirring and clicking then the mechanical parts are shot, as from this AI summary.

I have one that has failed in the same way.

• Repetitive Clicking/Tapping: Often referred to as the "click of death," this is the most common sign. The read/write heads are damaged and cannot find the data tracks, causing them to hit the stop mechanism, which produces a consistent clicking sound.

B0bbyEwing

Is the freezer thing a windup?

Also I ran some cmd line to check the health this morning. I'm on my phone so can't so easily say what it was but Google check smart health condition of drive & the cmd line it tells you to run that's what I did.

Health said OK. As with the other attached drives.

Why would it say that if it's goosed?

And why would disk management want to initialise it if it's goosed?

Wouldn't it just not connect at all?

Edit to add - wmic disk drive get status was the cmd.

wongataa

Hard drive health checks can give incorrect results. You can't rely on them.

Disk management is wanting to initialise as it can't see any file system on the drive but knows it is there as it is failing/has failed.

The hard drive is failing/has failed. There is no harm trying the freezer thing. At worst it will leave you in the same situation you are currently in. At best it may let you recover some data before the drive dies again.

The drive is dead. Buy a new one and decide whether paying for specialist recovery is worth it for whatever was on it.

Newcad

You could try this, like any attempt at file recovery it's at your own risk, and there are no guarantees.

However I've done it sucessfully on several occasions from crashed drives that have gone RAW (unformatted) both HDDs and thumb drives.

Of course if the drive is truly knackered then Windows won't be able to reformat it anyway

Recovering the "live" files that were on a reformatted drive is not the same as recovering deleted files.

So read it carefully a watch the linked video a couple of times

https://community.ccleaner.com/t/recover-non-deleted-files-from-crashed-reformatted-drive/79290

.

mta999

Do you have a backup of the drive?

B0bbyEwing

Thanks for the link. I'll take a look at that.

Question regards storing on SSDs / USBs and then losing that data due to lack of use (this called bit rot?)....

So say the drive has lost its data (different drive to the one in the OP now). I actually have a USB drive that's done this (the thumbnails show the pics but when I double click to open, they're ruined - half pics, a small fraction of a pic etc).

So I take it that I've lost all those pics through not using the usb drive (no big deal for the drive in question as the pics weren't important).

Is the drive totally knackered as in its just going to be no good ever again.

Or if I was to give it a full format, would it be OK to use (but use regular kind of thing rather than long term storage)?

B0bbyEwing

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81883193#Comment_81883193

I'm curious where this is going.

As all I can imagine is the flow chart of

Yes - well access backup then. (obviously).

No - well you got what you deserve, har har har.

Or is there a 3rd?