I’m having issues with my WD Elements SE 4tb drive. I would like help to diagnose the problem and try to fix it. The warrantee period is over
Firstly, I do not need to recover the data, I just want to get the drive working again so I can keep using it
The drive powers, spins up and sounds normal so I don’t think there is a mechanical problem but I’m not sure
I’m using a desktop Windows 10 PC with USB 3.1 ports. I can provide more details of the PC if needed
The problem began when the drive accidently reached 100% capacity while syncing data with Free File Sync. This happened because there was a lot of data in the recycle bin that hadn’t been emptied.
I cleared some data and got it back to around 80% capacity
After that I started encountering " Error Code 23: Data error (cyclic redundancy check) " in free file sync.
I decided to format the drive and start syncing again from scratch. I only did a “Quick Format” with windows as NTFS. Perhaps if I unchecked “Quick Format” it would have fixed it properly. I optimized and defragmented the drive with windows.
I started syncing my files again and it was working fine. Once I got to around 70% capacity, I started getting the Data Errors again. So I ejected it and gave up for the day.
Now when I connect the Drive to my PC, windows file explorer just jams up. I can navigate the explorer but the drive never loads properly. I get this never ending loading bar. I cannot right click the drive, I can’t eject the drive, I can’t open the recycle bin, I can’t even shut down the PC unless I unplug the drive, then everything instantly goes back to normal.
So my question is, is there anything I can do to fix the drive? can I somehow format the drive properly when it is in this state?
