Greetings, I am a wildlife photographer and I use my Western Digital External Drive as a backup for my photography. After defragging my C drive today, for some reason when I try to open my WD External “My Book” Drive it says that it is not formatted and wants to know if I want to format it. I don’t think I want to do that. It is full of my photos. Can this be fixed without loosing all my work? Please say YES! Please, please, please!
Maybe it can be fixed. Look in disk Management and look down by the bars. What color is it and does it say anything like Raw and does it have a drive letter? What OS are you using? One copy is not a backup. For a backup you need 2 copies on different drives or mediums.
Joe
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Sometimes Windows does not recognize the drive but Linux/ubuntu does. Try to find somebody using a different OS. That happened to me once, I set up Ubuntu on an old unit and was able to retrieve all the contents of the drive. Good luck.
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Sometimes Linux Live CD works too without installing actually Linux.
Joe
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I am using windows XP and the drive letter does show up but it no longer says “My Book”
Another possibility if you have another similar hdd is to open their case and switch their USB to SATA connector. I did that with a 1,5T WD Elements which the PC did not recognize and a 2T WD Elements in perfect condition. When I connected the 1,5T, the PC set up the new driver and recognized my drive. The 2T was also recognized.
If it is the USB to SATA connector which is defective, you can buy a new case.
To open a Book is not hard and you can find tutorials on YouTube.
Remember opening the drive voids the warranty.
Joe
