WD MyBook Essential not getting recognized

Started by Alexander Nicholi January 2nd, 2014 7:51 PM
  • 628 views
  • 4 replies

Alexander Nicholi

work hard, play hard

Age 25
Male
Research Triangle / Jakarta
Seen February 15th, 2023
Posted March 5th, 2021
5,498 posts
13.5 Years
I just got my Christmas 1.5 TB Western Digital MyBook HDD in the mail about 8 hours ago, and 3 hours ago it fell onto the floor, coming undone from USB 3.0 abruptly; now it won't get recognized by Windows and put in the Computer folder for access. When I look in the Device Manager, it says it's a WD My Book 1130 USB Device, and the bell rings when its plugged and unplugged, but it's not coming up as accessible, and MMC says it doesn't have any recognizable volume information.

Is there any way I can fix this? I had a warranty, but it doesn't cover even accidental damage, meaning I have no way of replacing it without buying a new one.

EDIT: Now it's treating my hard drive as a 5 1/4" floppy set.
Spoiler:


My guess is this is because I had it set in Windows to boot to drive letter B, for My Book, and it's confused because of some corrupted data.
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Legendary Silke

You like dragons?

Seen December 23rd, 2021
Posted April 22nd, 2020
5,925 posts
12.5 Years
Try connecting the drive to another computer. Does it make any odd sounds?

If it cannot be recognized or makes odd noises, the drive's busted, period - stop doing anything to it, and consider professional data recovery if there's anything important on it. (Your average data recovery program for Windows won't do much this time.)

Seagate does provide data recovery services for failed storage media, for example. What's in professional data recovery labs tend to be significantly more effective at recovering data than purely-software-based methods - they can get to a significantly lower level than most.

Tsutarja

Age 28
he / him
Florida
Seen 16 Hours Ago
Posted 5 Days Ago
27,325 posts
13.2 Years
I had a Western Digital MyBook Essential 1TB external HDD four years ago as a birthday gift that quit working just three weeks into its life cyclone, because of a similar problem.. so I'd assume yours comes in that casing which has to be plugged into an electrical outlet to work?

But yeah, do what Twiggy said and check the device out on other computers if you can. And if all else fails, get the media recovered if it's possible to. And then I'd recommend looking at something you could get as a replacement. Seagate makes really good HDDs if you want to look away from Western Digital, as I've had my Seagate external HDD for three years now and it's still working fine, and it's way more compact as well.

Alexander Nicholi

work hard, play hard

Age 25
Male
Research Triangle / Jakarta
Seen February 15th, 2023
Posted March 5th, 2021
5,498 posts
13.5 Years
Well ****, I guess it's busted. There's $120 down the drain, eh? D:
the beat goes on (ノ^o^;)ノ
ヽ(;^o^ヽ) the beat goes on
the beat goes on (ノ^o^;)ノ
ヽ(;^o^ヽ) the beat goes on
( don’t stop the groovin’ )