My Passport for Mac (WDBBXV/WDBL1D) Data Recovery

My Passport recently stopped booting. It makes the normal sound, and the light is solid white. However, my MacBook is not able to recognize it. I took it to a data recovery service, and they confirmed that the arm of the drive is not working. When trying to retrieve the data, they are being asked for a password in PC-3000 that is not my WD Unlocker password or my MacOs start-up password. I am not sure what else it could be. Are there any other options for me?

Hi @rm1900,

Please check the below article on Western Digital Hard Drive Noise:

If further assistance is needed, please open a case with our support team at the following:
https://support-en.wd.com/app/askweb

Mostly there are 4 probable causes for the clicking noise of a hard drive:

  1. The insufficient power supply is a very common cause of noise in the hard drive. It mostly happens when you have connected multiple devices (including the HDD) to a single port.
  2. Physical depreciation of the hard drive which results from either simple issues or damage such as a physical shock or trauma.
  3. A hard drive may be failed due to faulty data cables, or incorrect drivers installed.
  4. A crashed hard drive.

Subsequent fixes people have used to overcome the issue are:

  1. Check whether the hard drive is getting enough power or not. You can do it by plugging the power adapter directly into the power supply.
  2. Replace the data cable with the new one and turn on the drive. Now, if it does not make any noise, then the data cable might be faulty.
  3. In case the drive still makes noises, then there is a high possibility the drive is failing and needs to be replaced.