WD External Hard Drive My Book Essential not starting

[adalsmosh]

Today I Started my desktop computer and my external hard drive (Western Digital My Book Essential Edition 320GB) is on but not running. It is making sounds like is trying to run but nothing happen. The computer is not recognizing the the hard drive. I tried connecting it to other laptops and computers but none of the computer are recognizing the hard drive. Is there anyway I can recoup the data that is in the hard drive? or anyway assistance in getting it recognize by the computer to pass information to another disk.
Thanks for any help!!!

 

[linney]

These are recordings of hard drives, dead and dieing, see if you recognize the descriptive sounds.

As to getting data off the drive it will depend, I imagine, as to where the damage is. You are likely to need professional (and expensive) help. A computer is not much use (for recovery) if it can't read the drive at all.

My Ipod Tracklist
thread779-1272771

See some of these Data recovery links, I hope you are lucky.

Data recovery.
PC Inspector

http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm

http://www.restorer2000.com

http://www.runtime.org/hints.htm

Plenty of other recovery software listed here.

http://dmoz.org/Computers/Software/Disk_Management/Error_Checking_and_Repair/

 

[adalsmosh]

Thanks for the links but the hard drive is not starting so I guess I will have to take it to a pro in this area to see if can recover the data.

 

[manhunter2826]

How old is the WD external, out of interest? I suspect it is a sealed unit, but if you can access (remove) the hard drive you could try attaching it to an IDE controller. Yes, you would void the warranty I realize that, but it could be merely be a CONNECTION problem (usb to usb).

 

[goombawaho]

The last post is a good idea ONLY IF it's out of warranty. The idea being, it would be a lot cheaper for you (or a skilled tech) to try attaching the drive to another computer using an IDE or SATA interface (whichever you drive has) and seeing if any data can be read.

The alternative is $500 and up professional data recovery.

So, if out of warranty have someone do that for you if you can't do it yourself. You may get your data at 1/5 the cost or less, depending on tech cost.

 

[manhunter2826]

^Indeed, thanks for the clarification. I should have stressed urgently the caveat (warranty expiration).