OK so when I plug in the drive I can hear it attempting to start - It makes 4 loud spins then slows to a stop but the light stays on. At this point I hear the plug and play sound but the drive is nowhere to be seen in My Computer. Ive tried it on two different computers so it’s not a faulty USB port.
I realise the drive is probably dead but my question is, will a data recovery program be able to retrieve anything if the drive is like this and not showing up on My Computer? Also if I bought a USB to SATA cable would there be any chance of that working?
OK so when I plug in the drive I can hear it attempting to start - It makes 4 loud spins then slows to a stop but the light stays on. At this point I hear the plug and play sound but the drive is nowhere to be seen in My Computer. Ive tried it on two different computers so it’s not a faulty USB port.
I realise the drive is probably dead but my question is, will a data recovery program be able to retrieve anything if the drive is like this and not showing up on My Computer? Also if I bought a USB to SATA cable would there be any chance of that working?
Have you tried looking in Disk Management to see if the drive shows up there? If it does, then you may have just damaged the partition. You will need a partition recovery utility to restore it. Or if you have the data elsewhere, then you can just repartition and format the drive from there.
The USB to SATA cable may work if the drive isn’t what’s damaged. Just know that you may void your warranty once you open the case.
What does what mean? If you’re talking about corrupting the partition, then that’s the format the drive has to be partitioned in, in order to have data written to it. That’s moot anyway if the drive doesn’t show up in Disk Management.
Then try to open the case without hurting the drive, and then use a SATA to USB cable converter to try and read the drive. However, please understand that you are on your own in doing this.
Ok, I’ve just got my SATA to USB convertor and i’m wondering how exactly I use it. I can’t plug it straight in to the drive because the USB and LED part’s of the passport are in the way. Is there any way of removing those components without damaging the drive?
Believe it or not, I’ve never taken one apart. But I do know that where the pieces come together, there are tabs that interlock. So, you’ll have to pop them lose without breaking them. And make sure that you don’t scrape the pcba board on the drive.
There are no tabs that interlock. The USB port is soldered directly on to the circuit board and there are just a series of pins. No SATA interface.
I’ve been searching google relentlessly and have finally found something that makes it pretty clear that WD changed the drives some time ago so there is no longer any means of using a SATA to USB cable on them. This man details my problem here:
There’s definitely something else going on with the drive besides the USB port. But I wouldn’t know. So unless someone else has an idea, I think you’re stuck with going to data recovery if you need to get your data back.
