WD Elements 2TB External hard drive BLINKING LIGHT Problem

Does anyone know how to fix this using a Mac Book Pro??

I think that I have found the issue.  Tonight my daughter plugged the Laptop cord into the hard drive instead of the external HD power and now I have the same issue, HD broken!  Blinking light and no HD movement.  I think that it fried the circuit card located on the outside of the hard drive.  I do not believe that this hurt the internal hard drive or motor so I am going to replace the outside circuit card.  I found the same hard drive at a local store.  I am not recomending doing this but I will do it because my data is more importaint then a warrenty.  All that you need to do is take out of case.  Disconnect the USB Card.  then use a star drive to remove the card on the back.  This needs to be precise and make sure you don’t break the pins that connect the circuit card to the phisical drive.

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Thank you… would it be possible to outline the steps you took… cause I think there are  many here suffering from the blinking light issues… and want a way to simply gain access to the data.

  1. how to  open the case
  2. what is a star drive
  3. what did you do to recover the data

curious & Apologies if these are too basic  questions

Larrry

I also had the problem with a 2TB disk.  I didn’t try to get it replaced by WD as the backp data and yes it was a duplicate backup is confidential data that I would rather trash the disk than allow it into others hands.   I took the disk out of the case removed the circuit card and mounted it inside my destop.  I had to reinitialize the disk which of course meant the data was lost but the desk appeared to be working at least at first.  I went ahaead and attempted to copy the data over again from the original source but after a half hour or so the disk copy failed saying the destination could not be found the disk had dissapeared from teh Windows 7 64-bit OS.  A reboot brought the disk back again but this has repeated iteself over and over at the msot a half hour of copying files then the disk just dissapears.  I was able to do a full surface scan of the disk and it didn’t reprot any erros but you start copying files and the disk jsut goes away…00  I suspect there is some component on the disk circuit board that fails when it gets hot and that only happend with continous use.  And yes the disk is placed in a well ventilated portion of my desktop case.   IT will be a while before I buy another WD disk.  Who is the most reliable disk manfacture seems to go in cycles at one point brand A as new models come out they may have a lemon series and it might become brand B.  I’ve worked with computer since the days when my first 20MB and yes thats MB not GB hard drive cost me $500.    Put that in a Leading Edge Model computer with an 8088 processor a cyrix math coprocess had about $2,500 tied up in that first PC and that was 1986 so that would be a lot more in todays dollars.

just saw your post, have exact same problem with my imac, today I opened disk utilty and erased the drive and bingo it showed up straight away, not ideal answer but as obviuosly all old back ups are gone but at least all is backed up again from today, I for one wont be buying this brand again.

Mine worked for a week (just enough time to transfer all of my photos) and then I bumped it. Now I have the blinking light problem too and it’s aggravating.

I can’t see it listed under My Computer or Disk Management. I’ve tried to plugging the power cord directly into the wall socket (instead of an extention cord I use), different computers, etc. Any other easy fixes I can try before opening up the case itself?

My WD Elements 1tb external HD has this problem also only difference is when ever I plug mine into my laptop it slows it down and makes my windows 7 laptop crash. It doesn’t come up when I plug it in I can’t get it connected to reformat it need help family photos are on there!!!

I returned my last Harddrive (same power issue) and got a warranty one that after 2 weeks, developed the same problem.

I figured the solution out of luck. This is because I use my hardrive on both macs and pcs. 

So this is how I figured out the problem.

You know how it has a firewire output and a USB Mini-b (5-pin) output.


Well, when I plugged only the firewire into the Mac, it was not enough to power it up. BUT, then I plugged in BOTH cords to the mac and it powered up!!! Unfortunatley, THIS does not help if you are using a PC since PCs do NOT have firewire inputs!!

SO!

I noticed my teacher had a hardrive. He had the same two outputs (a firewire and the USB Mini-b (5 pin) output.)

He had this cool wire that on ONE end, the USB mini-b 5 pin  (to connect to the harddrive.) On the other end of the wire, it had TWO USB ends! (split)

This way, you could plug your harddrive in with two USB ends into your PC computer. All of a sudden, this seems to be enough power to power up your harddrive!!!

It really **bleep** that WD is not realizing they are not making their devices easy to power. Their built in power supplies easilly lose ability to recieve nessisary power after first time use, especially if you are going in between mac and PC computers. 

SO, if you dont feel like taking the time to keep using your WD warranty, then go on Ebay and order one of these:

  http://www.amazon.com/Bytecc-USB2-HD201-cable-mini-USB-Hi-Speed/dp/B002GWMLE8

THIS should help be enough power to power up the harddrive for your PCS (and Macs)!

Hopefully this helps.

And Dear WD, you need to fix this issue. Thank you

I’m having the same problem! PLEASE HELP US!

Thanks

I am so sick of this … anyways - my 1.5 TB WD Elements drive starts blinking and won’t show up.

It’s great that WD will replace the drive - but how about the reason I bought the bloody drive in the first place TO BACKUP DATA!!!

Anyways - crazy to think people have to pay thousands of dollars for data recovery.

I’ve been researching for days and trying to figure out how to get it to work -  I DID!!!  

I downloaded a program called Remo Recover - it was able to see my drive (it was still blinking non-stop) - I clicked on the recover files option and left it. When I came back a few hours later - my drive was on the desktop!!! 

Quickly started copying files to another back up disk. Remo is stil working in the backgroung - showing it had another 2 days of creating a tree from the lost files (it’s already been at it for 16 hours - but I’m recovering 1.5 TB of data)

Anyways - hope this helps anyone out! it worked for me. GOODLUCK!

Bye bye WD - no more data for you!

Just found this forum since I’m having basically same problems described. I have an older Elements ext HD, used it occasionally for years, and a couple months ago my Acer laptop, a new one, just died for no reason, had to do data recovery, worked for hours to recover everything I could and placed it on the Elements. Left it plugged into new laptop, no problems, now today it lights for 3 seconds and dies. Kept unplugging and plugging it, 3 seconds of light, then dies. Tried direct outlet like some members recommended, no help. Finally I resorted to semi-barbaric means, smacked the SOB lightly multiple times on a table, tried it and light started flashing, finally held and laptop recognized it. Although it was older it had VERY little use on it until 2 months ago. From what I read here even new ones are crashing. I’m storing it until I get another external HD and hopefully it will run then and I’ll transfer everything. The fact that I could whack the thing and make it run means it is a physical problem with the HD. I don’t think it was the connection to the HD as it seemed to be plugged in fully and there was no movement at the connection. And if I turned the HD upside down or sideways while I was performing whacking maneuvers, it would run intermittently. I’m thinking internal connection or the motor’s starting to go, this being more likely.  Useful advice I found here is to back-up to 2 different sources. I’m getting 2 external HD’s and doing just that. For everyone experiencing lost data here, don’t give up. Your stuff’s on there, you just have to get it back. Look for data recovery software, I used GetData but there are others out there, they’re not cheap but worth it and the venture can be time consuming. Good luck!

Remo’s an excellent choice, I posted just after you with my woes concerning WD. I used GetData but used Remo on another recovery venture a while back, they have it so you can also run the  program from a USB drive, that’s what I used. Anyway, on my post I said I would now back up to 2 externals, but I don’t think I’ll use WD. Take care.

Had the same issue with a WD Elements (USB Powered) drive.   Used EASEUS Partition Master (free for home use).

Tried NTFS format and this didn’t work (it just hung, same as trying to use windows disk manager).

I then did a FAT32 format and this worked a treat.

I suspect doing an NTFS format now may work, but FAT32 will do for my purposes.

I can’t not believe that what is meant to be one of the leading brands and this is happening to sooooo many people.  I have had my portable hard drive and wall power external hard drive (which was my back up) go within two weeks of each other.  BOTH were WD. Will never buy WD again.  I have a WD media box too, I feel like throwing it in the bin. :manmad: I know how everyone feels, especially the people whom have lost photos as I have lost all of mine :cry:

Argg,

I got the blinking light of death today.  So sad, my music & photos on this WD HD.  I downloaded the trial Remo Recover - but I can’t see the HD listed in the list of drives on my system.  I don’t want to commit to the $50 if it’s not going to work.  Any suggestions?

I have the 1TB and I purchased it less than a year ago.  Quite disappointed in its performance.

tried it and because my drive is displayed with 0mb, remo recovery crashed xD

My 3TB Elements drive has been blinking like that for months but Windows 7 still sees it fine.  Once I access the drive, the LED stays lit for awhile.  I had assumed that the blinking (1 sec on, 1 sec off) was a standby or sleep indicator.

A 1.5TB Elements drive is right next to it.  It is about 3 years old and its LED is always steady on.

So am I correct in assuming that the blinking you all are talking about is the same as mine (1 sec on, 1 sec off) or is it faster?

I had the same problem, i used “Get Data”, it really works. At least enough to copy your stuff off your hard drive.

Hi, so I had this problem and now facing it again. The element 2tb just keeps blinking and wont recognize on my mac tower. So a while ago I was freaking out. I have 2 of the same kind so I thought it was the cable that was messing it up. Anyways, I just let it sit while the external was plugged into my mac tower. And 20 min or so it just popped and recognized it. I went and bought another external. This time seagate as opposed to wd. I am hoping that my computer will recognize it again and I can back everything to this new external. But I just wanted to share with everyone, perhaps leave your external plugged in to your computer for a long time. Try that… hope that helps someone. It worked for me. And Im hoping that it will work for me again. (had to restart my computer for the new external installation) now its not showing once again.