Topic: WD HARD DRIVE ISSUES

[waltmon]

I have to 500 GB drives that are chock full of music and my computer will not "SEE" them. 


   The drives power up fine and I here the disc drive spinning, but the computer still does not recognize them....is there a fix?   I have alot of my masters on one plus 500 GB of top notch Dead on the other.

[flipp]

Use a "live" Linux disc to boot from. If Linux sees the drives, transfer the files to something else so you don't lose them if the drives die.

That's the easiest way to see if the drives are still good. With a little more info I might be able to offer a different suggestion. What OS are you using? Internal or external drives; if external, WD MyBooks or bare drives in an aftermarket enclosure? EIDE/PATA or SATA?

[LEDZEPZOSO]

I have to 500 GB drives that are chock full of music and my computer will not "SEE" them. 

Have you tried to use another PC. Simply and easy test.

[waltmon]

I am using windows XP media edition.   The WD drives are the external "MY BOOK" series.

[Gordon]

do they show up in disk management?    (control panel > administrative tools > computer management > disk management)

[chrisdavis]

interesting.  i have a wd passport that has the same issue.  i usually just leave it plugged in...

[Fatah Ruark (aka MIKE B)]

If you can get the data off of them I would HIGHLY suggest buying TWO drives to replace them.

I just saw a 2 TB drive on sale for $110!! Get 2 of those and you will be golden for a long time.

In regards to your issue I have heard that external drives can sometime have issues with the electronics that a part of the case that die, and then the computer can't read the drive.

You can remove the drive from the case an install it inside of a desktop or a known good external case and sometimes read the data off the drive.

Hopefully you have backups of your shows. It drives me NUTS when I read about someone that lost all of their recordings because they only had one copy. Hard Drives WILL die. It's not a matter of IF but WHEN. Only having your data in one place is exactly the same as just erasing it.

[it-goes-to-eleven]

I just saw a 2 TB drive on sale for $110!! Get 2 of those and you will be golden for a long time.

And did you wonder why it was on sale and why people are paying that for 1TB drives?

The 2TB drives, and the smaller drives based off the same tech, are still too immature and prone to failure.  They also use 4k sectors.  So I'd say advice to buy those is bad advice.

[waltmon]

I have alot on disc, but I was burning so many discs, I replaced like 3 disc burners 

    I am freaking mostly about the one with the masters on it..I taped my wedding band and Bob Marley's guitar player and Peter Tosh's base player was in our band and for what ever weird reason my wife did not get a copy after I mixed it down. Basically in the shits as usual...

[it-goes-to-eleven]

So what diagnostic steps have you taken so far?

And.. just a warning, don't use any BS windows repair tools on the drives.  Most of them are crap. At this point it is all about gathering information and doing no harm.  If you actually have a media issue, it would be best to minimize the spin time as much as possible.

[waltmon]

I have tried the drives on a couple different computers with the same results.  As I said, they power up perfectly.  I went to the WD for support and they had a widget that is supposed to sniff out the drives.  It showed that I had a WD500-whatever attached to the laptop, but no luck with the laptop seeing it.

  1 of them initially would pop-in if I left it on a while but since stopped.  I figured it best not to keep running the unit til I had a plan.  I was told that you could take them somewhere and have the drives read and dumped on another drive, but its supposed t be pretty spendy.

[Fatah Ruark (aka MIKE B)]

I just saw a 2 TB drive on sale for $110!! Get 2 of those and you will be golden for a long time.

And did you wonder why it was on sale and why people are paying that for 1TB drives?

The 2TB drives, and the smaller drives based off the same tech, are still too immature and prone to failure.  They also use 4k sectors.  So I'd say advice to buy those is bad advice.

Good to hear. I guess that makes sense. I just got a 1.5TB drive a couple of months ago and it died already! It still works but has developed more than a few bad sectors. Just bought another 1.5TB drive to replace it (WD instead of Samsung this time).

Apologies for the bad advice...but the key thing is keep multiple copies of everything. Chances are you won't have 2 drives die at the same time.

What's the word on taking the actual drive out of the enclosure and putting it into a new enclosure? I've heard that the electronics in the enclosure go bad, and that makes the drive unreadable, even if the actual drive is fine.

[flipp]

I just saw a 2 TB drive on sale for $110!! Get 2 of those and you will be golden for a long time.

And did you wonder why it was on sale and why people are paying that for 1TB drives?

The 2TB drives, and the smaller drives based off the same tech, are still too immature and prone to failure.  They also use 4k sectors.  So I'd say advice to buy those is bad advice.

Good to hear. I guess that makes sense. I just got a 1.5TB drive a couple of months ago and it died already! It still works but has developed more than a few bad sectors. Just bought another 1.5TB drive to replace it (WD instead of Samsung this time).

Apologies for the bad advice...but the key thing is keep multiple copies of everything. Chances are you won't have 2 drives die at the same time.

What's the word on taking the actual drive out of the enclosure and putting it into a new enclosure? I've heard that the electronics in the enclosure go bad, and that makes the drive unreadable, even if the actual drive is fine.

Opening a MyBook enclosure will void the warranty. If you send it to WD for a warranty replacement you get a different drive back. You have to weigh whether a working MyBook or the data on the drive is more important to you. I'm betting Walt wants the data off the drive rather than a working MyBook.

Since more than one comp has trouble seeing the drives I still suggest booting from a live Linux cd (Ubuntu just released their latest version yesterday) to see if Linux recognizes the drive(s) and if so transferring the data to yet a third drive; that or opening the MyBook, removing the drive and hooking it to a comp as either an internal drive or mounting in an aftermarket enclosure to see if the drive is bad or some of the MB electronics decided to go south.

[it-goes-to-eleven]

The mybook enclosures can be very difficult to open and extract...  that seems intentional.  The good news is that it doesn't take much for windows to ignore/not show drives.  I have a thumb drive right now that is just fine but windows doesn't like it and won't mount it.

I agree on using linux to investigate the true status of the drive.  Though it doesn't sound like Walt has those skills.  Maybe someone in Texas can help him out?  There is a logical progression of steps in this recovery...  Is the drive visible on the USB bus?  Can the drive's partition table be read?  Can the drive be mounted (read only) under linux?  etc.

It sounds like this data is not backed up.   So a destination drive will probably be a necessary first step.  You really don't want to do anything that could harm the drive until you have made a full image copy of the drive.  Mounting the drive is not necessary for a recovery.

[TaperBryan]

I am using windows XP media edition.   The WD drives are the external "MY BOOK" series.

Like Walt, I'm running the same OS and using the same WD drive.  Except mine is a 1TB.  Mine is not even powering up.  When I plug it in...I can hear it spinning....but, my desktop recognizing the drive when I plug in the fire wire....

HELP!!  I have TONS of masters on there.  Did they just get 'erased'?!?!??