WD 1tb harddrive i/o errors

I have a 1TB WD elements external harddrive.  I think I bought it in 2010, but it has only been used for about two months of that time.  I used it in March and it worked fine.  Now it’s garbage and has sustained no damage.  As soon as I plug it in it bogs down my computer and starts to cause other programs to go ‘not responding’.  I can usually use it for about 30 seconds or so and then it either causes my computer to freeze or gives me an ‘io error’ message.  Even when it is working it trasfers so slow I can no longer watch the videos on it that it used to display (Behavioural videos of Eastern Kingbirds, not **bleep** like you probably assumed).  It seems like somehow connecting the drive absorbs all my CPU’s capacity even though I have a strong processor and this never used to happen.  I contacted WD and basically they just told me to buy a new one.

First, does anyone have any ideas for what is wrong with it or how to fix it?

Second, if not, is there at least a way to get my data off the drive, my thesis requires it?

Third, don’t buy WD.  This drive is practically new and totally garbage now.  I just ordered a new Toshiba drive and I just hope there is a way to get my data onto it.  I have an old Gateway harddrive that I took out of an old laptop and it is still going strong about 8 years later.

Sounds like a data corruption problem, you can try using a data recovery program like testdisk. If that doesn’t work you might need to contact a data recovery company.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

Thanks for the tip, but I’m not sure how that will help.  All I can find online for that program is restoring partitions and deleted files.  My files and partitions are all there and as far as I know healthy, but I can only view them for 30s or so before it becomes too painfully slow and either freezes the computer or goes non-responsive.  When this happens all I can do is pull the power chord and instantly every problem is fixed…  except I can no longer see anything on the harddrive obviously.  My first thought was it was over heating, but it seems unlikely it would overheat in 30s or instantly fix itself when unplugged.

I rescind what I said about not buying WD in my first post.  It still **bleep** that it died so quickly and that no one can explain why, but they are sending me a new one so so long as I can find a way to get the data off my old one I have no complaints.

Yep, exactly the same problem here!  Infuriating!!!  I’ve heard this is happening to a few of these WD drives around the same age.  Will contact WD to see what they say…