My WD My passport shows up in device manager, but not in file explorer

[Chrisotos28]

I have a 1 tb WD My passport, and in the past, it would work in file explorer, but now it does not show up in file explorer, makes the windows connection noise, and shows up in device manager. I have tried updating the driver, and it did not work. I tried changing the cable and it didn't work either what should I do?

[Oshino Shinobu]

What does it show as in disk management?

[Chrisotos28]

It says not initialized, and when I try to initialize it, it says the request failed due to a fatal device hardware error

[Kilrah]

That means it's dead.

[JustTheTip]

To confirm death you could use SeaTools and perform a "Long Generic" test on it

[Chrisotos28]

Can I do anything to recover the data

[JustTheTip]

2 minutes ago, Chrisotos28 said:

Can I do anything to recover the data

It really depends on how it died, first and foremost do you have a backup of the data? Secondly how valuable is this data?

 

First confirm its got an actual drive problem using SeaTools though, lets not jump to any mad panic conclusions yet

[Chrisotos28]

It does not show up in seatools

Does that mean that it is dead?

[Chrisotos28]

I do not have a backup of the data, and it is all family pictures.

[Oshino Shinobu]

7 minutes ago, Chrisotos28 said:

I do not have a backup of the data, and it is all family pictures.

I would advise contacting a professional data recovery service if you really want the photos back. You can make it worse and ruin your chances of getting the data back if you try to use tools you're not familiar with. 

 

It sounds like the drive is dead, though it's near impossible to tell you how it's dead without having physical access to it. You may find it's simply the data or power adaptor within the drive's enclosure that are faulty and the drive itself is fine. If that's the case, data recovery will be super easy for the company you go to and there'll be no hassle. 

 

If the drive's still within warranty, you may find WD offer a data recovery service. I'd start by contacting them to see if it's either part of the warranty or if they'll do it anyway even if it's not. Last thing I'd advise is trying to recover it yourself. 

[JustTheTip]

7 minutes ago, Chrisotos28 said:

It does not show up in seatools

Does that mean that it is dead?

Like Oshino said, it sounds like its dead to me but it would be hard to confirm it. 

 

If its in warranty contact WD, if not then drive savers or some other reputable data recovery brand. 

 

For future id back up your data in multiple places, I use OneDrive and a NAS

[griffinstorme]

On 10/14/2020 at 6:23 PM, JustTheTip said:

Like Oshino said, it sounds like its dead to me but it would be hard to confirm it. 

 

If its in warranty contact WD, if not then drive savers or some other reputable data recovery brand. 

 

For future id back up your data in multiple places, I use OneDrive and a NAS

Hi, I'm having the same issue, but I am discovering the drive in SeaTools. It failed the self-test and 2 minute-test, and I'm doing the long generic test now. 

Any advice following this? I'll post the update when the test is finished, but it's been on 0% for several minutes. 

Edit: it failed the long generic test.

[Oshino Shinobu]

40 minutes ago, griffinstorme said:

Hi, I'm having the same issue, but I am discovering the drive in SeaTools. It failed the self-test and 2 minute-test, and I'm doing the long generic test now. 

Any advice following this? I'll post the update when the test is finished, but it's been on 0% for several minutes. 

Edit: it failed the long generic test.

Sounds like it's dead. Though best to start a new thread rather than reviving a thread from 2 years ago