The request failed due to a fatal device hardware error

WD External Drives External Drives for PC
1

Dear WD Team,
I was utilizing a WD hard disk that I bought and while transferring data to format my PC suddenly two messages came in and since that moment the data I stored in the hard drive is inaccessible, the two messages I’m getting are

  • F:\ is not accessible
    The request failed due to a fatal device hardware error.

  • The directory name is invalid.

Can anyone help me restore my data please?

Thank you,
Ghassan

2

If the drive is in an enclosure, remove the drive from the enclosure and use a sata to usb adapter to see if the drive can be seen in windows explorer and your data also.

3

When “the request failed due to fatal device hardware error” occurs, your device turns inaccessible. This error usually occurs while attempting to transfer/copy files and suddenly the Windows OS fails to recognize the input or the output devices. In addition, this error could also be due to a fault in the systems hardware, inappropriate configuration, loose connections, etc.

To fix the error you can try the below DIY methods:

  1. Check the SMART status
  2. Run an error check
  3. Run CHKDSK scan
  4. Initialize the disk

Further, you can check the below blog to know more troubleshooting methods that can help to resolve the issue and also helps to recover data from such drive:

Hope it helps!

4

Strange story. Yesterday I had the exact same symptoms appear on my 2TB WD USB 3 disk. Was not super worried as most of the important files were backed up to 2 additional drives but there were some that hadn’t been yet. I tried everything I could find to get access but nothing helped. Had to stop[ working on the problem because my wife’s caregiver had to go home and I was up. But I guess, to use some computer terminology, a process was running in background in my head. Had a decent evening with my wife and went to bed. At midnight I had to get up to take some meds. At this point it came to me that on Monday I had checked AskWody for the status of the Feb Win10 updates. They said go ahead so I started the process. The problem appeared Tuesday. The update process had not been completed because it required a restart. See where this is going? Even though it was the middle of the night I restarted my machine and the problem went away. I now have full access to the drive as if nothing had ever happened. I have no clue why the problem appeared or why it went away all I can do is report what I did. Does anyone have any idea? I am here typing this as this was the last article I looked at before giving up and going to take care of my wife.