WD MY PASSPORT 0740 USB DRIVE NOT FOUND

[Evil8]

My son came to me yesterday with a WD My Passport 0740 USB Drive (p/n WDBACY5000ABK-01). He has been using it for about 6 months and plugged it in last night and it no longer comes up. I've tried both USB ports on my Dell Vostro 3550 Windows 7 x64 and I can see the drive in the Device Manger list and in Disk Management it lists as Disk 0 Unknown Not Initialized. Trying to do anything here gives me an I/O error. I tried another USB cord and that made no difference.

I tried plugging the drive into my Windows XP desktop (used several back and front USB ports) and it list under Device Manager, but no where else. I even tried a mac in the office next door.

I've tried the testdisc and EaseUS Partition Master Home Ed. These two utilities don't list the drive either.

When the drive initially gets plugged in, the light blinks (never stops) and for minute I can hear a noise like its spinning or maybe trying to spin? I have to run out now on a call, I'll grab a power booster cord, but I don't think that will help.

I've been scouring the internet for 2 hours looking for a workable solution can anyone here help?

 

[goombawaho]

The drive, like Elvis, has probably left the building. The question is whether you care about the data on the drive or just trying to get it to work again.

The only real way to test it (confirm death) is to CAREFULLY remove it from the external case and plug it into another computer as a slave. If it still doesn't spin up properly (listen to it upon PC power up) and is not recognized, the drive is dead.

At that point, if the data is of value, you probably need to send it to a data recovery specialist.

 

[Evil8]

Thanks goombawaho, that's what I was afraid of. I'll try the power boost cable and then try to open the case.

 

[goombawaho]

Can you describe what you mean by "power boost cable?" Did the drive come with an external AC to DC adapter and you haven't been using it?? That's not a good idea as that means the drive requires more power than a single USB cable can provide.

Also, if it came with a second USB cable, that should also have been used for the same reason as above.

 

[kjv1611]

WD MY PASSPORT 0740 USB DRIVE NOT FOUND

Did you try looking under the couch?


"But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Corinthians 15:57

 

[Evil8]

Can you describe what you mean by "power boost cable?" Did the drive come with an external AC to DC adapter and you haven't been using it?? That's not a good idea as that means the drive requires more power than a single USB cable can provide.

The drive is only powered by the USB port. A USB port provides 500ma. A power assist cable is actually a y-cable that would plug the drive into two USB ports giving it 1000ma of power to spin up the drive. If you run a search on "western digital passport not enough power" you can read posts all day long.

Regardless, I've discarded that option and I'm going to crack the case and try to slave the drive to another computer as you suggested. I'll let you know how that works.

 

[Evil8]

goombawaho - I have the case off now... Do you know what cord adapter I need to use to put this in a desktop and power it. It has the special usb plug (soldered to the circuit board) and to one side has 2 pins and on the other a double row of 6 pins. The desktop I was planning on using has open sata ports and one empty ide port w/cable.

Thanks.

 

[kjv1611]

Surely that's just an adapter stuck against the back of the hard drive? I know I've seen some that looked like they were part of the actual drive when in fact they were not. I'd be shocked if it weren't a SATA drive underneath what you're seeing. But I've not held that particular drive in my hand to know for sure.

"But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Corinthians 15:57

 

[Evil8]

Surely that's just an adapter stuck against the back of the hard drive? I know I've seen some that looked like they were part of the actual drive when in fact they were not. I'd be shocked if it weren't a SATA drive underneath what you're seeing. But I've not held that particular drive in my hand to know for sure.

I was pretty surprised myself and thought sure there would be an sata plug in underneath myself. Looking at other posts online elsewhere this seems like an issue that there is little I can do. I found one posting with pictures of a guy who connected wires directly to pin point on the PCB and to sata plug, but I'm not going to do that. I'm pretty sure hdd is doa. My son just called me and told me he purchased a Seagate 1.5TB drive for the same price he paid for this 500 GB WD My Passport anyway. He will just have to rebuild his media library.

 

[goombawaho]

If you want to post a [highlight #FCE94F]picture, maybe we can confirm the difficulty of connecting to a standard SATA port.[/highlight]

If the data is worth it, data recovery is often successful. If I lost all my music, much of it recorded from vinyl, I'd be looking for tall bridge.

 

[goombawaho]

If you want to post a picture, maybe we can confirm the difficulty of connecting to a standard SATA port.

If the data is worth it, data recovery is often successful. If I lost all my music, much of it recorded from vinyl, I'd be looking for tall bridge.

 

[vacunita]

I've seen a few of these external hard drives with the USB port as the only connector soldered directly onto the drive's PCB, without any other usable connector

There seems to be an extra 12 pin connector to one side on some of the ones I've seen, but not all. However, I've never been able to find a cable that goes there. I've always speculated its a diagnostic port for use of the manufacturer only.

In any case, the only way to connect these drives directly to a PC, is to replace the PCB with a standard SATA one from a compatible drive. Though this doesn't always work.

It may or may not be worth it to do it. At the end if the USB interface still works, you may be able to at least place it on the donor drive of the PCB and get a new USB drive out of that.


----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

Web & Tech

 

[goombawaho]

Is this typical of only the external 2.5" drives and not the 3.5" drives? I always figured the 3.5" drives were pretty standard, but I haven't had the need to ever crack any of them open.

 

[Evil8]

It seems typical of newer western digital passports. I've not seen postings of others having this issue.

 

[rclarke250]

On my wife's older WD drive, it sometimes has trouble coming up to access it's contents in windows. I had to take the drive out of the external enclosure, and reseat the card on the drive. After doing this, it worked in my Blacx external unit, put back into the enclosure and it was working again, I've had to do this every 6 months or so, after she dropped it one day. Still ticking along, but I have it being backed up on the NAS, and a spare drive waiting till it dies.

 

[Evil8]

I had to take the drive out of the external enclosure, and reseat the card on the drive. After doing this, it worked in my Blacx external unit, put back into the enclosure and it was working again, I've had to do this every 6 months or so, after she dropped it one day.

Taking the drive out of the enclosure and plugging it in didn't seem to help and nothing looks loose. I think my son dropped it and as these platters are made of glass I think it's toast.

 

[vacunita]

Is this typical of only the external 2.5" drives and not the 3.5" drives? I always figured the 3.5" drives were pretty standard, but I haven't had the need to ever crack any of them open.

I've only seen it on the 2.5 ones. I'm guessing the power requirements of the 3.5 would prevent this from being viable. And all 3.5 external drives I've opened, have always had either the regular IDE or SATA connections.

Since its now out of the case, connect it normally via the USB cable and put your ear to the drive. Do you hear it spinnig normally, or does it beep, or click or anything like that? If does its pretty much toast.

Of course trying to replace the PCB is still an option.



----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

Web & Tech

 

[goombawaho]

I think we're over-analyzing this one. The OP is at peace with giving up on the drive.

Hoping that they don't make it any harder to work on the externals. I've got a Seagate 2.5" 250GB - wonder what's inside of that in terms of connections. Always figured I could crack the egg and connect it, but perhaps not.

 

[rclarke250]

You misunderstood, I didn't reseat the drive in the enclosure, I reseated the controller card on the drive. The Blacx allows for hotplugging the drive into my system so I can test the drive.

 

[goombawaho]

Right - the electronics board controller that is screwed to the drive, not the sata interface area. The OP could try that, but he can't connect it to another system because of the weird sata interface.