Hello! I have an interesting problem with one of my Passport Ultra backup drives. I had a Windows update fail and crash my laptop last night and I woke up to a frozen computer and an inaccessible Passport backup drive. I system restored the laptop and all is well there. I have multiple copies of everything important so if the Passport is a loss it’s not a huge deal. HOWEVER, I’m trying to understand what is going on with it. If you plug it in it will power up and spin (the light flashes quickly). I tried scanning it with chkdsk but it fails to complete on an unspecified error (tried rebooting and running chkdsk again but no change). I then tried WD own lifeguard software and here is where it gets weird. If I plug the Passport into any computer (tried 3 different windows operating systems all the same result) it will show up briefly and pass the SMART test from the WD lifeguard then after about 2 seconds it freezes the software and nothing will un-freeze it short of unplugging the drive then it is instantly all fine again.
The same goes for the disk management functions in Windows. Because I have duplicate copies I thought I would try to format the Passport and start over. As soon as the Passport is plugged into the computer, Disk management recognizes it for a second or so then freezes, as soon as you unplug the Passport you are fine. This goes for ANY software or windows function that tries to access the Passport (Matlab, SolidWorks, Windows File Explorer). You also cannot shutdown or restart any computer the Passport is actively plugged into. This is from a VERY protected and isolated computer so the chances of a virus or other malicious intrusion are exceedingly small and nothing shows up and scans.
Before I take the Passport out for target practice I thought I’d throw the situation up on here and see if anyone had any ideas. Like I said all the data on the drive is duplicated elsewhere so retrieval is not very important. I’m more trying to understand what went wrong and whether the drive is salvageable. Thank you for reading this, if you need any other details let me know and I’ll try to fill it in.
Thanks!
