WD 1TB Elements usb hdd is driving me crazy.

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UNCLEMIKE1

New Member
Ok, hears the situation, my parents went away on a weeks vacation (Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince). LOL

No, really, here is my problem. I bought the hdd mentioned in the title about a year ago. I have all of my important stuff backed up to it. As of recently my computer crapped out on me and I had to grab a backup computer from the basement. I put a fresh install of W7 Ultimate on there (Intel Motherboard with a P4 3.0ghz processor and 2gb ddr2 ram) and then i plugged in the usb hdd in to retrieve my backed up info. To my surprise I keep getting a pro.mt to format the drive before using. There is way too much stuff on that drive that I need to retrieve. I tried everything from different computers to actually taking the hdd out of the case and hooking it up direct to the sata port on the mother board of two computers. Still nothing. What can I do to get this thing working without loosing all of the info? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I found a lot of crap about this searching google but no real solution, so who ever gives me the solution is "my hero". Thanks guys
 
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UNCLEMIKE1

New Member
Yes, I have tried both using the usb housing and removing it from the housing on as many as three different computers.
 
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UNCLEMIKE1

New Member
I forgot to mention that the drive shows up in "my computer" and under disc management in administrative tool. But when I try to access it I get a promt saying that I need to format it before I can use it.
 
S.T.A.R.S.

S.T.A.R.S.

banned
Ok try to access the disk using Linux Ubuntu 9.04 CD.Just download the ISO image and burn it to the blank CD-ROM disk and boot from it.

If that did not help,then perform the DISK CHECK on that WD HDD by booting from the Microsoft Windows XP or Microsoft Windows 7 CD/DVD-ROM disk and then go into the RECOVERY CONSOLE and there write the following command:

CHKDSK Z: /p /r

NOTE 1: The "Z:" is the drive letter of your WD HDD you want to recover.So be sure that you write the CORRECT DRIVE LETTER!!!
NOTE 2: The recover process might take a VERY LONG TIME TO FINISH so let it finish.DO NOT STOP IT!!!





Cheers and report back with the results!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
U

UNCLEMIKE1

New Member
Okee Dokee, I will try this later on today and let you know how I make out.

S.T.A.R.S. said:
Ok try to access the disk using Linux Ubuntu 9.04 CD.Just download the ISO image and burn it to the blank CD-ROM disk and boot from it.

If that did not help,then perform the DISK CHECK on that WD HDD by booting from the Microsoft Windows XP or Microsoft Windows 7 CD/DVD-ROM disk and then go into the RECOVERY CONSOLE and there write the following command:

CHKDSK Z: /p /r

NOTE 1: The "Z:" is the drive letter of your WD HDD you want to recover.So be sure that you write the CORRECT DRIVE LETTER!!!
NOTE 2: The recover process might take a VERY LONG TIME TO FINISH so let it finish.DO NOT STOP IT!!!





Cheers and report back with the results!
Click to expand...
 
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UNCLEMIKE1

New Member
Tried Ubuntu with no luck. It says "Unable to mount drive". "Windows did not close properly" or something to that effect. Trying windows recovery right now. Will keep you posted.
 
2048Megabytes

2048Megabytes

Active Member
How much are you willing to pay for data recovery? I think that is the route you may want to look next since it seems something is wrong with the drive.
 
U

UNCLEMIKE1

New Member
There has to be a better program out there to access the data. The Ubuntu thing didn't work but it did show that the drive is NTFS and it also shows the size of it. I just can't access it. There are 2 partitions. The first one is in WBFS format for Wii games and the other is ntfs. I wonder if I will gain anything from deleting the partition for the Wii games.
2048Megabytes said:
How much are you willing to pay for data recovery? I think that is the route you may want to look next since it seems something is wrong with the drive.
Click to expand...
 
U

UNCLEMIKE1

New Member
The windows recovery didn't work either. Do you have any other suggestions?
S.T.A.R.S. said:
Ok try to access the disk using Linux Ubuntu 9.04 CD.Just download the ISO image and burn it to the blank CD-ROM disk and boot from it.

If that did not help,then perform the DISK CHECK on that WD HDD by booting from the Microsoft Windows XP or Microsoft Windows 7 CD/DVD-ROM disk and then go into the RECOVERY CONSOLE and there write the following command:

CHKDSK Z: /p /r

NOTE 1: The "Z:" is the drive letter of your WD HDD you want to recover.So be sure that you write the CORRECT DRIVE LETTER!!!
NOTE 2: The recover process might take a VERY LONG TIME TO FINISH so let it finish.DO NOT STOP IT!!!





Cheers and report back with the results!
Click to expand...
 
Holiday

Holiday

New Member
Ok dude! your files are still there! your partition(s) is just a little messed up. I've had this sort of thing happen to me a few times before. There are programs which will automatically fix the partition table for you. I think I used partition table doctor http://www.ptdd.com/ I'm not sure if they still have the program or maybe they renamed it. but look for a partition table fixer. or some version of partition table doctor. let me know how it goes. best of luck!!!
 
N

Nanobyte

New Member
The most effective recovery software I've used was an earlier version of SaveMyFiles, (was ESS Fast File Recovery). It has a demo version which only lists recoverable files, not save them. $99 if you need to really use it.
 
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