My Book 2TB firmware update - apparently reformatted the harddrive

WD External Drives External Drives for PC
1

I updated the firmware 1.1 to 1.4, power cycled, and apparently the process reformatted the HD. I cannot ‘see’ or access any of the backed up data. Volume went from 1.2TB to 230GB. I had no warnings or confirmation messages that the HD would be reformatted or there would be permanent loss of data.No “Are You Sure You Want To Reformat The HD? This Will Cause A Permanent Loss of Data!”  type of confirmation or warning.  

I don’t suppose the data is “hiding” on the drive somewhere and retrievable?

Unfortunately, I don’t have a backup of my back up. I just bought a new HD and was in process of copying the backed up data onto the new HD. Very frustrating and expensive loss.

2

Yep. data is all there on the WD drive. I cannot ‘see’ it or retrieve it with the WD software but I was able to find it by looking through all the files with windows explorer. Used it to transfer files to my new HD. Then I will run the WD back up again and hopefully all will be visible and usable.

Whew!  several hours of sweating bullets on this one.