I’ve maintained two Ultras, usually through powered hub, several years now. Rarely moved or jostled, they sit behind my laptop on my desk. One day, the newer one just couldn’t be read. It showed as unlocked, through the security software, but no familiar directories or files. Curiously, I had been sure I knew which was the older and the newer and labled them, “1” and “2”. Soon, I found those to be reversed and started seeing the bad one renamed as “Recovery”. File Explorer shows the two virtual drives for WD Unlocker, (one for each external HD) but “My Passport-2” has been renamed to “RECOVERY” and shows, in one display I get with WD Smartware, 32 GB total, (supposed to be 2 GB or 1.8) and 19.3 GB Additional Files. Looks like that is what can be read but all my data files, (photos, mostly), just not seen. I’ve run all the utilities I can think of. Is only choice to send it to a repair place? Is it, even, worth doing that?
Hi,
_This looks like MicroSoft File History or more likely Recovery option has taken over your drive.
The data is the backup made by Recovery.
Check out both on Control Panel. You may be able to erase the drive and start over.
Cliff
Thank you Cliff. At one point, I may have a assigned some kind of back up to one of my externals. Still, are you saying that all my original data is gone, replaced by this new “partition” or drive number? I am much more interested in recovering my data then deleting and re-using the hard drive.
Smartware will tell you what is left of your previous backups. Open as shown in your Snip picture and click on Restore. If the data you want is shown there then you can restore to your computer.
If the data is not there, you may be able to restore from the Recovery partition if the data was on the computer when the Recovery was made. Check out Recovery procedure before you try, just to avoid more trouble. And turn it off in the Control Panel.
Best I can offer.
Cliff
Thank you, Cliff. Just trying to be sure that I am being clear, I never intended to back anything up from my C drive to this external drive. It had been 90% full of simple data files, primarily photographs. Not sure what happened from there. One day, seems I couldn’t read my second external drive as I have been for two years every day. Smart where retrieve doesn’t seem to be seeing any backed up volumes. In the original screen capture I attached, one of my 2 - 2TB externals describes 32 GB total capacity.
