Recovery options

Hi I have an essentials drive which I have been advised by WD is still under warranty but can no longer be accessed by my pc. I downloaded the lifeguard app suggested to run a test and inital test shows ok / but extended diagnosis states bad sectors. Contacted WD ontrack and they quoted a starting price of 399 + vat with free delivery. Whilst this maybe a final option I’d welcome any other suggestions on what I can try to access drive and recover data/photo files thanks. Fot anyone else reading this I have anout ten of these essential drives going back over ten years and all work flawlessley. Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

Hi @HiflymanWD,

This is to inform you that Western Digital does neither cover Data Recovery under its warranty policy nor has any in-house data recovery service.

Title: Alternate 3rd Party Data Recovery Options
Link: Third Party Data Recovery Software Options for Windows and macOS

Thank you for your reply.

Still asking for help from anyone in the forum who has tried alternative software methods of retrieving data from an elements non password protected drive.

All suggestions welcome

If your drive becomes unresponsive or undetected then there could be various reasons for the same. It can be a hardware issue or some technical issue in the software. The external drive may be detected by the system if you connect it to another PC, but it doesn’t respond.

Below are the few possible reasons for an external drive being unresponsive:

  • A lot of bad sectors
  • Infected File (Virus or Malware)
  • Driver issue
  • Mechanical failure

You can try the below options to resolve the issue:

  • Run CHKDSK
  • Use an Antivirus & Anti-Malware tool
  • Re-install the drivers

Further, you can also check out the below link to know more about data recovery: https://www.stellarinfo.com/blog/how-to-fix-not-responding-hard-drive/

Hope this will help.