Has my 500gb Western Digital Mybook external hard drive died?

Ok, yesterday windows told me that it was having troubles copying files to the hard drive. I thought it might just be a windows problem, so I restarted my computer and the drive seemed to work again.

Today I started up my computer and it appears the drive isn't functioning correctly. 'Autoplay' comes up when I plug the drive in, but it is blank and doesn't show that it's scanning any files or anything. The drive is visable in My Computer, but it is labelled as 'Local Disk' rather than 'My Book' as it was before. When I try to access the drive, windows gives me errors such as 'K:\ is not accessible. The request could not be performed because of an I/O error.' or 'The drive K:\ is not formatted. Do you wish to format it now?'.

I tried to run chkdsk and it seemed to work before getting stuck at stage 2/3, so I closed the command prompt and started it up again and now it says that 'The type of file system is RAW. Chkdsk is not avaliable for RAW drives.' but I know for a fact that the drive has been formatted as NTFS.

I downloaded the WD Lifeguard application which gives me the SMART status as FAIL. When I try to run the quick test, it fails for an 'unknown reason'. I'm currently running the extended test which has not failed yet. The health of the drive in the lifeguard application is given as 'Warning'.

Any help would be appreciated. I made the mistake of not backing up, which in retrospect was really stupid but there are some ireplacable files on the drive that I'd very much like to recover even if it means the drive will no longer be able to be used.

Time to dust down your warrant I think.

Thanks for the reply Phil.

Luckily, I checked the warranty on the WD website and I have one month left of warranty remaining. Are WD likely to replace the drive or will they attempt to fix it? I would like to get the files.

I doubt the warranty covers any file recovery, 99% of the time the files are toast, unless you fancy forking out for lab spec recovery as drives are dust sensitive.

It aint cheap.

Ah, ok. Thanks Dave.

Is there any possible way to check that the drive really is dead before sending it in. I'd like to exhaust any possible (preferably free) options of data recover before getting a replacement.

Thanks once again.

Can you read any data from it, does it make clicking noises?

I think you have already done more than most folks would.

If theoir own diagnostic software is showing a fail, I dont think there is really much more you can do. Be sure to make those points when you return it though.

Like I said, I can't access the drive. I can't hear any clicking noises, but then again there weren't any when the drive was working properly either. The diagnostic tool is still running and checking for bad sectors apparently, which is making the light on the drive flash on and off as it would if data was being read or copied from it.

Well if that sorts it then great, but if it doesn't you will need to send it back to WD.

And they will format it to test it.

They'll format it?

When I try and access the drive now it's asking me if I want to format it. Do you think it'd be worth a shot if the diagnostic test fails? I understand that I'd lose all my data, but it'd save me from sending it away if they're just going to do something that I can do here. Or do you mean that they would format the drive to test if it was working rather than as a way to fix it?

The PC is only suggesting a format as It can't read it, it thinks it's a fresh drive and unformatted.

They will format it post fixing it, and that's only if it's a circuit board fault, if it's the actual drive they will just replace it, it's cheaper to do so.

Alright then.

In the meantime are there are tools that are suited to this sort of data recovery? I'm planning on trying GetDataBack once the diagnostic test has finished.

Thanks.

Take it to WD and see what they say because they might know what the problem is. Have you contacted them to ask them if it is a common problem with this model of Externel Hard Drive. Also contact their Technical Support to see if they can help you otherwise by the sounds and looks of it, it sounds like it is going to have to go to WD for an inspection.

Thanks vk3fcll. I notice you're an Australian member, have you had any experience with dealing with WD? Apparently you need to send the drive to Singapore for any warranty issues.

Be careful if the data is that important, these companies tend to wipe stuff whether you say to or not.

I've had many a customers laptop come back from manufacturers wiped back to basics.