Can't access USB HDD - suggestions?

Mr Benevolent

I have a WD 500GB 'My Passport' USB drive and I can't get into it via explorer on any PC. It was working fine this morning, hasn't been dropped etc. So far I've tried:

CHKDSK x: /f from the command prompt (no response)
Booting into safe mode and trying to access it via explorer (hangs)

Can't think of anything else except a format which I don't want to do.

yoyo

Confab wrote: »

I have a WD 500GB 'My Passport' USB drive and I can't get into it via explorer on any PC. It was working fine this morning, hasn't been dropped etc. So far I've tried:

CHKDSK x: /f from the command prompt (no response)
Booting into safe mode and trying to access it via explorer (hangs)

Can't think of anything else except a format which I don't want to do.

Before doing anything more can you try it in another machine? Sometimes hard drives do break even if looked after properly, lets hope its a drive number conflict problem or something

Nick

Mr Benevolent

yoyo wrote: »

Before doing anything more can you try it in another machine? Sometimes hard drives do break even if looked after properly, lets hope its a drive number conflict problem or something

Nick

I've tried it on another PC, made no difference unfortunately!

yoyo

When you ejected it earlier did you safely remove it or just pull it out? I've seen similar symtoms on USB Keys/Drives which were not safely ejected and corrupted, try Recuva on the drive, see if it sees anything, that is assuming the drive is getting detected

Nick

Mr Benevolent

yoyo wrote: »

When you ejected it earlier did you safely remove it or just pull it out? I've seen similar symtoms on USB Keys/Drives which were not safely ejected and corrupted, try Recuva on the drive, see if it sees anything, that is assuming the drive is getting detected

Nick

Recuva is detecting the drive but that's it - it hangs. I think the drive is f*cked. Oh well.

yoyo

Confab wrote: »

Recuva is detecting the drive but that's it - it hangs. I think the drive is f*cked. Oh well.

You could try PhotoREC but as you said things arn't looking good

Nick

Mr Benevolent

yoyo wrote: »

You could try PhotoREC but as you said things arn't looking good

Nick

Just tried it there - hangs like the rest of 'em. Bin time. Thanks for the help though.

johnmcdnl

Confab wrote: »

Just tried it there - hangs like the rest of 'em. Bin time. Thanks for the help though.

before binning it

you could try to open the casing and take the hard drive it self out and use it as an extra internal hard drive for your desktop...

I had the same problem as you with a 1TB drive but it's now doing nicely in my desktop... I'm assuming it just had a problem with the usb interface or something... hard drive seems perfect otherwise but just wouldn't work in it's casing...

it's worth a shot anyways just before giving up

bonzodog2

Or get a cheap enclosure if you have a laptop