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lapfog_1

(30,086 posts)
4. no... right now the drive is dead
Sat Oct 28, 2017, 01:28 PM
Oct 2017

Chances are that the heads won't actually move since the drive detected some sort of head crash last time it was operational. If the heads don't move, it can't read the label and, therefore, DOS (Windows 10) can't figure out what that is at the end of the USB cable.

At this point, your only option to recovering the data on the failed drive is to use one of the services that I mentioned. I can't recommend one because I've never used any of them myself.

All of the rest of my response was what you should do in the future.

The drives being manufactured today (by both WD and Seagate ) are about the same in the reliability department, so buying a different make of drive isn't really going to help anything as far as future longevity is concerned. These sorts of drives (consumer, external USB, 5400rpm, etc) are the least reliable drives that these companies make. The ecosystem is USB, SATA, SAS as far as cost, performance, reliability.

That said, every drive made today should be viewed as suspect.

You will eventually be able to change technology to flash or memristor or 3d Crosspoint or other more exotic (and very expensive) storage in the future. Some of those (like flash) are getting cheaper, but flash has its own reliability issues (and, worse, is that RAID technology may not help flash like it does hard drives, but that is a subject for a much longer post where I bring up a lot of research done at IBM Almaden Research Center).

Anyway, today you need to send this drive off to a data recovery service ($400 to well over $1000) if you absolutely need this data.

For the future, backups, redundancy (RAID, erasure codes), cloud services (don't forget to encrypt anything going to the cloud), and health monitoring.

Good luck.

WD My Passport issue [View all] SHRED Oct 2017 OP
well, essentially there are only two makers of hard drives lapfog_1 Oct 2017 #1
thanks SHRED Oct 2017 #3
no... right now the drive is dead lapfog_1 Oct 2017 #4
It's the pictures SHRED Oct 2017 #5
Pictures from where? lapfog_1 Oct 2017 #6
good ideas SHRED Oct 2017 #7
I think it's a goner SHRED Oct 2017 #8
no it's not "gone", What they will do is lapfog_1 Oct 2017 #10
Time for Cloud backup Abnredleg Oct 2017 #2
Try this first canetoad Oct 2017 #9
If Device Manager sees the hardware Sailor65x1 Oct 2017 #11
Before giving up on it, try a different cable and USB port. Thor_MN Oct 2017 #12
what light is blinking? you mean the green 'power' light blinks? Sunlei Oct 2017 #13
Latest Discussions»Help & Search»Computer Help and Support»WD My Passport issue»Reply #4