I am looking for help recovering data from the hard drive in our MyBook Essential. Any suggestions as to who can help with that? It no longer turns on and perhaps there is a problem with it electronically. Thanks.
Check Windows Disk Management. In Windows 11 right-click Start - Disk Management and see if the drive shows up there without a drive letter. This is very common and would explain why WD tools see it but File Explorer doesn’t. If it’s listed as Healthy just assign a drive letter and it usually appears instantly. Also important My Book drives use hardware encryption in the enclosure so the original USB board must stay attached or the data won’t be readable even if the drive is fine. Since SMART and tests pass this points more to a Windows mounting issue or a flaky USB cable or port rather than data loss.
