I was editing pictures from my external hard drive when my computer suddenly froze. After I restarted the computer, it could no longer recognize the external hard drive. When connected to the computer, it shows up under ‘Devices and Printers’ as ‘My Passport 0730’ and in the ‘Device Manager’ as ‘WD My Passport 0730 USB Device.’ But under the computer folder, where it used to show up as ‘My Passport (G)’ it now just shows up as ‘Local Disk (G)’ and prompts me: “You need to format the drive in disk G before you can use it.” I’ve tried downloading numerous data recovery software programs and none of them have worked, most likely because the external hard drive freezes my computer and any software programs I attempt to run until the moment I unplug it… then the computer starts working fine again. I’ve contacted a handful of data recovery service providers and the cost is in the hundreds and thousands of dollars, with no guarantee that the data can even be recovered. Obviously it is my own fault for not backing up my files elsewhere. I have spent days researching and made countless failed attempts at trying to resolve this issue myself. I still do not understand what specifically went wrong with my hard drive, though I am guessing it somehow got corrupted. I wish I knew exactly what the problem is and if there is a way I could fix it myself without too much hassle. At this point however, I have about given up and will be reaching out to some professionals once I can find a place with reasonable rates and am able to afford it. I am not the only one experiencing such a devastating situation. The cost to recover the data is extremely outrageous and unaffordable for most of us!!! The loss of my irreplacable files is heartbreaking and frustrating to say the least. It seems to me that the majority of failed hard drives, whether old or brand new, are made by Western Digital. I would not recommend these products to anyone and I will never be purchasing through them ever again.
