Hard drive failure message after iTunes and WD MyCloud installation

WD Internal Drives Desktop & Mobile Drives
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This past spring, I have upgraded my computer with a new hard drive, replacing the 500gb with a 1tb hd. The new hard drive was a WD Blue 1 TB Desktop Hard Drive, with Windows 8.1 Pro, on a Dell Inspiron 500 desktop computer.
The installation completed without problems, and used without problems for past couple months.

A few days before the hard drive failure, I set up a MyCloud drive (that I had purchased recently). That didn’t seem to cause any problems. Then, in order to install the WDMyCoud App on my iPad 3, I needed to upgrade the iPad iOS (6) to iOS8. That required upgrading iTunes on the Windows 8.1 PC, and connecting the iPad to the PC. Completed upgrade iOS on the iPad (a few problems, though resolved - upgrading through iTunes on PC instead of through iCloud/wifi).

Within hours after, I received on startup of the desktop computer an error message of “hard drive failure.” After multiple tries, I did get the computer to start up and show the computer desktop. I thought the problem was only a scare. However, the computer wouldn’t startup again, showing error messages: “No Boot Device Available” (when pressing F2 or F12 keys). With Boot Menu: “Boot From…(whatever drive selected)” “Not found” “No boot device available, press enter key to retry.” “SATA - : Installed, SATA - 1: Installed. (no entry of SATA 2 & 3); SATA 5: None.”

My conclusion is that iTunes had caused the problem in some way. iTunes is a large program, installed in the root directory of the computer, is somewhat foreign to Windows, and may have had drastic effect on the computer startup. Since having important business to attend on the computer, I removed the 8.1 hd hoping to get the hard drive going again later on, to recover files on it; Replaced the non-working hard drive with an old hard drive with Windows Vista (that I used before purchasing the 8.1 upgrade).

Then, hoping to use W8.1 again, purchased a 1TB Seagate HD, and formatted to prepare for a new installation of Windows 8.1 Pro. However, when putting the formatted drive in the computer and trying to start up, I immediatly got the hard drive failure message.

My conclusion is that there is some problem with the computer - BIOS, boot disk, or whatever - that may have been altered either by the installation of the WD MyCloud Control Panel system or by iTunes. I doubt that the problem was that the WD Blue 1 TB Desktop Hard Drive was defective, if also the new Seagate HD had shown the hd failure message. And the WD hard drive had been working fine prior to installation of the WD MyCloud and iTunes. (Note that the hard drive with Vista works fine, as I am using it at this moment.)

Then, by advice of WD telephone support this past evening, I went to website, “WD Support / Downloads / Other Products / Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows” (support.wdc.com); Installed the testing software, and tested the hard drive (mounted in an external enclosure and connected to PC by USB). The telephone support said their hours were closed for evening, to begin test, estimating three hours, and to call back next day. The test ended in a few minutes, with a pop-up message with the simple message, “too many bad sectors”.

I would like to ask the WD Community for their opinion about this. The telephone support may ask me to return the hard drive for replacement. I don’t want to return the disk for several reasons: 1) There is confidential information on the hard drive that could be traced (even after erasure) for identity theft if WD resells as refurbished. 2) There are important documents on the HD that I would like to recover. 3) I don’t believe the hard drive is bad, and could save me the hassle of return and I could erase after recovering the data, and use as a backup hard drive.

Anybody here with experience with iTunes causing hard drive error messages?

Thank you for your attention on this problem.

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Hi there,

I have not heard of this problem, but on this case I recommend try to run a data recovery software, you can also try to take the drive to a data recovery company since you are concerned about your data, Lets see if another user can give some recommendations on this matter.

Here is a link with some companies that do this service, in some cases they give free diagnostic of the drives:

http://support.wdc.com/recovery/index.asp?wdc_lang=en

1 Like
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Thats just a bad coincidence… I think hou have two bad had drives

You should change sata cable and sata port on computer… See if you have another port available

If you fealy need the data try to run it without any OS as secundary storage if it doesnt work send it to recovery

If you need to destroy your data on that hard drive after sucessfull recovery i would recomend zero fill on wd software lifeguard

1 Like
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You think I should pay a data recovery service. This problem occurred after I had contacted the western digital community, wdc mycloud forum, for advice on installing a mycloud app on my iPad, so that I could connect with mycloud on my iPad. They suggested I upgrade the iOS on the iPad in order to meet Apple’s system requirement for the mycloud app. The hard drive failure occurred after installing itunes on the computer.

The problem could be something with the bios or bootup system, as it appears to be in the computer: the hd failure occurred again with trying to install a hard drive manufactured by another company. However, when putting an old hard drive with vista OS onto the computer, no failure occurs.

Currently, here are a few possibilities of the cause:

  • The iTunes installation or WD MyCloud installation corrupted the startup/bootup on the computer. If that was true then I wonder how the the Vista drive starts up.

  • Perhaps the options I selected for initializing or formatting these hard drives had caused the failure of both of these drives. I don’t have the specific terms in front of me, I had initialized the hard drives by right clicking on Computer, navigating to “Disk Management”, selecting the unformatted disk, selecting initialize and then format. Someplace there it had asked for “quick” and “safe” (or something like that). I chose the latter, I believe. There was a warning on one of these options, that there was risk of corruption of the disk in the event of an interuption of current shortage, etc. I believe I selected the safe option. Maybe the computer ignored my selection by some default. I think that this indicates the possibility that the hard drive could be corrupted in formatting. An expert on hard drives, in this community, would know about this. The WD Support download for testing the hard drive, a few days ago, said “too many bad sectors”.

  • I had purchased a new hard drive enclosure, the (ULTRA USB 3.0 SSPEED DUAL HDD DOCKING STATION - ULR-102388767) this past spring. I had used this enclosure to initialize/format the second hard drive (the seagate), but I believe I had used another enclosure to format the first hard drive, whereupon I had installed Windows 8.1 Pro. Note that the enclosure was used for formatting the hard drive, then mounted in the computer for installation of windows 8.1. Note that I own the licence for Windows 8.1 Pro and Windows Vista that spoke of here.

Thank you for your attention and help on this problem. Note that I am a good customer of Western Digital; purchased several WD hard drives over the years for OS and back up, a pair of 1tb for backups this past spring, besides the one for 8.1 OS, and recently the WD MyCloud system.

Regards,
Don

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im just a wd consumer like you… just trying to help… 

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You could not pay me to use iTunes, but that’s just me. It’s an enormous resource hog intended to trap users into staying with Saint Steve’s products.

You need to eliminate some variables. I would test the drives on another PC. The SATA ports could have gone bad so try different ones on the motherboard, even slower ones.

If you want to wipe a drive so no one will ever read the old contents, first write zeros to the entire drive using Lifeguard and then use a seven-pass run with DBAN, after which even the NSA would have great difficulty reading the data using an electron microscope.

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Hmm bizarre.
I!ve got appointments next couple days. Try to get back by Wednesday.

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Okay, a quick update on this problem.

The disk failure message has now occurred when starting up my computer with the old hard drive with OS Windows Vista! The error message, on a dark screen, was “Diskette drive 0 seek failure. Press F1 to continue, F2 to enter setup.” Luckily, after several tries, I finally got the computer to startup with Vista. As you notice that I have mentioned on this thread that Vista is the only surviving hard drive to start up on this computer.

Does anybody have any ideas on what this problem could be, and suggestions?
- If the failure is in the computer, what should look for in the computer to establish the problem?
- Any other software to diagnose and test the computer besides the hard disk test on wd?

The inside of the computer looks very simple, in terms of parts: the motherboard with ram and other slots, a few clusters of cables, dvd drive bays, fans, etc. I examined to make sure there were no loose wires and cables, or breaks or crimps in them. I think I am going to disconnect the computer spray out dust in the system with canned air. However, I better hold off on that, as I must keep computer going until I have completed backups, as the computer may not start again once I shut the computer off.

Maybe I should call Dell, the computer manufacturer, except the computer is long past its warranty. I am going to look up there website for testing software.

I could also try calling back to the WD hard disk support again, for help.

Okay, so I’ve got to start backing up Vista before it also quits on me. I haven’t believed that the problem was the hard disk, as were from new hard drives of different companies; the more recent had nothing other than being initialized and formatted.

I’ve got many other things that I’ve got to attend to, besides this computer and hard disk, so I can not make full committment to this. I hope there is simple solution, as I won’t have a computer if Vista also goes wrong.

Thank you for your attention and help on this problem.

Don