Hi, I live in India and I got my WD My Passport SE 1TB from US. It suddenly died today. The white light is conttantly on. To make things worse, I have it password protected. After some searching on internet I see that internally the disc has only USB port and no SATA, so data recovery is not possible. Can the data be recovered please. There are a lot of family pictures and lots of personal stuff for which I don’t have a copy. On top of it, my product is listed as OUT OF REGION for replacement. Can the WD guys recover my data even if they charge for it.
WD may be able to help you find a professional data recovery service. These services are expensive. Did you try the drive on a different PC and with a different cable? It may be in the bridge board. Try reading the posts by fzabkar he is the most knowledgable on these circuit boards. You can also send him a PM.
Joe
Joe, a USB-only disk has ONLY a USB connector, this connector is on the disk’s controller board. There is no intermediary bridgeboard. One green board that contains the usb interface and drive mechanics controller. That’s it!
WD doesn’t do data recovery. They will recommend an official source though.
Also note that there are 4 points where a sata connector can be wired into the disk. But it requires an experienced tech for the job.
WD’s external HDDs often develop connection problems at the micro-USB connector. To confirm whether the Data+ and Data- pins are making contact, try interrogating your drive with Microsoft’s UVCView:
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/USB_IDs/UVCView.x86.exe
If there is no communication, then there could be a USB connection problem, or perhaps a faulty drive is hanging up the drive’s bridge IC, or it could be that the USB port is unable to provide sufficient power.
Can you hear the drive spin up? Does it make any noise, however soft, as if it is trying to spin up?
If you opt for professional data recovery, there is a fellow at Chandigarh who may be able to do the job for you. (BTW, I’ve seen his soldering, and it’s excellent.)
Sorry for the late reply. I was out of town on urgent business. The drive does not spin. Not even faintly. Its white light is just constantly on.
