WD My Passport can't access data and windows partially recognize it

WD External Drives WD Portable Drives
1

Hi

I have a 1TB Passport drive that has all my pictures and very important stuff.

One day it started to work very slow and it was making wierd noises - like a rat or something - it was consistant for a few mintues.

When I tried to shutdown the computer to disconnect it - it won’t shutdown. After half an hour I shut off the computer forcfully.

Since that point the hard drive is not recognized and it seems that it’s getting worst and worst.

It does show up in disk managment but it takes 10 mintues for disk managment to load.

It doesn’t recognized as an hard drive and it keeps on connecting and disconnecting from the computer.

This is why I can’t run recovery software - I select the harddisk and in the middle of the search it stops because the harddrive disconnected.

Can I do something by my self? Or should I just submit it to a data recovery company?

Thanks!

2

If I go to a data recovery company and they need to open my hard drive to recover the data - does this invalid the warranty?

Will I be able to get the hard drive fixed once the data is recovered?

Thanks!

3

Hi, call tech support first and let them know that you will open the hard drive for data recovery. 

4

Whenever we get a hard drive for recovery, we advise to our customers to contact WD and let them know that data is important and that the drive would require opening up for recovery. WD honors that, as they understand that data is most likely more important than the drive itself.

5

Running your drive right now can actually be causing more and more damage to the platter if heads crashed, specially with the sounds that you describe. You see sometime heads can get caught up in parking ramp like in the picture bellow, and that can cause all kinds of nasty damage. So power off your drive and look for data recovery firm.

 

Video on what most likely needs to be done

pard 2 for the video