My Primary Partition was corrupted to the extent that I could not get at my files. I followed the instructions ON THIS WEBSITE! and went through the Disk Management procedures. That REALLY screwed things up! I am now forced to seek another way. Currently, connecting it to my computers (USB) results in no drive letter being assigned by Windows (XP or 7). The disk is not even recognized by the 3 various Partition Managers I tried.
There is a Recovery Partition on this disk. However, I am unable to find ANY reference to this on the WD website.
Can anyone tell me what this partition is for and how to use (access) it. I am hoping that I can revive my primary partition.
First off, I use My Passport to store downloaded documentaries, movies
and TV shows for viewing
on my TV at a later date. The problems started two weeks ago when the TV
would not see ANYTHING
on the disk.
Connected it to my computer. It was recognized, but told me it had to
format it before I could use it. I
then did manage to revover many (far from all) files with Remo Recover.
After which I used Easus,
Minitool Partition Wizard and Paragon Partition Manager, two of which
showed a secondary partition
shown as a Recovery Partition. This was 2 weeks ago and I am 79. Asking
me which ones is asking for
way too much. I was too teed off to bother making notes.
My next step was to navigate to the WD website, and I ended up here:
which explains how to use Windows Disk Management. I followed the steps
and deleted the volume as
explained. Clicking the New Simple Volume is the step which “screwed
things up”. That step could not
be completed. There is now a red + shown on the far left of the disk
info such as can be seen here which
deals with “how to initialize”:
At this time, Windows does not even see the inserted disk. But WD Drive
Utilities does. I ran it and Check
Status gives a Smart Status Failed message while Run Quick Drive Test
gives me a Failed message.
As there is no drive letter assigned by Windows, even WD Quick View
keeps trying to ID it when I plug it in.
USB Safely Remove sees it as: WD My Passport 071A USB Device.
I’ve been messing around with computers since 1979, so far from the
newbie stage. I wish I could turn back
the clock and take a screen picture of the Recovery Partition info. The
size of that partition was also shown
in the info block. Too late now. The golden years ■■■■!
All I want to do at this stage is to bring it to the condition where I
can format the blasted thing and continue
using it. It’s been great until now.
The drive is no longer any good. If the Smart status fails and the Quick Drive Test fails, then the drive is no longer viable. You will need to replace it. If your drive is in warranty you can create an RMA and get it replaced.
Hi Clifford;
Thanks for the info. I had assumed as much. Unable to find Settings → Update & Security. Also keep in mind that this my USB drive which Disk Management tells me is not initialized, unknown and unallocated. The option to “Initialize Disk” is greyed out. All I wish to do at this point is to restore to enable me to format the blasted thing. See my reply to Bill above and his last message.
