WD Elements 3TB Hard Drive

Portable Drives My Passport
1

I recently received my Western Digital Elements Desktop 3TB Hard Drive and started to use it. The first two days I downloaded about 250GBs from my computer to the Hard Drive and also accessed the files to watch some movies. Everything was working very fine with no problems.

However, on the 3rd night I suddenly had problems with the Hard Disk. I could no longer transfer files onto it and the existing folders appeared to be empty (though I could not verify this with the computer freezing up whenever I tried to transfer the files). When I went to shut down and reboot everything, I found that I could no longer perform a safe disconnect from the computer.

After this, the Hard Drive is no longer recognized by the computer. It does not connect at all. (Note that the white light is still blinking on the unit.)

I have found several possible solutions online and I will attempt tonight:

  • Connecting the Hard Drive directly to the electrical outlet instead of through an multi outlet strip (the unit appears to be running so I do not believe that this is the problem).
  • Trying a new USB cable.
  • Connecting to other computers to see if they can read the Hard Drive.

Do you have any other suggestions of what I should try before I am forced to attempt to reformat? Fortunately, there was only movies and such on this disc, so there are no irreplaceable personal items but I would still prefer not to lose all of my data.

2

if the disk shows up in disk management, then you most likely have some corruption in the file system.  that will make files dissappear and the disk unreadable by your pc.  if that’s the case and you don’t need the data, you should just reformat the drive.  also I would always make sure to safely remove the drive.  and try not to copy data while you’re playing a movie.  those kinds of things can be a no-no.

3

Why you always think the data is NOT important?? If the disk has data you can bet it IS important!!

4

You should have at least 2 copies of important data. If your backup  becomes unusable you would still have the data on the original drive.

Joe