Crucial Data Stuck in Portable HD that isn't Recognized

[rivenagares]

Hello,

I'm pretty new here so if this has been addressed my apologies, I spent some time sifting through but i cannot find a situation precisely like mine or close enough to get a solution (if there is one).

I have (had) a portal WD Passbook Harddrive, 500GB. One of the older versions. It was my backup drive and i stored a ton of crucial items on it. One day my computers no longer recognized it!

The drive spins, there is no clicking, but it doesn't show up in either device manager, USB recognition, nothing.

I removed the cover like some suggested, plugged it directly into the motherboard via Sata cables, both for power and connector to the motherboard, and still, nothing.

The Computer doesn't recognize it.

What are my options? I hear there are expensive ways to recover the information...but what do those technicians do? Is there anyway I can do what they do myself?


Thanks for any and all assistance.

 

[Aastii]

I will assume you are running Windows 7 unless you state otherwise. Right click computer and click manage.

down the column on the left hand side, click disk management, and a list of all storage devices should appear. If the external drive isn't in there, unplug the drive and plug it back in. If not now appears, right click the drive and click Change Drive Letter and Paths...

change it to any other letter (except ones that are being used already by other drives), and see if it now shows up.

Remember too that in device manager it will come under USB controllers as it is a USB device if you haven't checked there