Not seeing 1T external hard drive

[chalced]

My 1T USB3 (western digital) external hard drive stopped being recognised by my laptop a little while ago.
I have tried downloading several 'fix' softwares, but to no effect.
If I change the OS to linux then it 'sees' the HD, but still cannot access it.
I think perhaps the boot sector of the disc has become corrupted?
Anyone got any other ideas of what else to try before I have to go and take it to some 'expert' and pay through the nose??

[ChimpMaster]

My 1T USB3 (western digital) external hard drive stopped being recognised by my laptop a little while ago.
I have tried downloading several 'fix' softwares, but to no effect.
If I change the OS to linux then it 'sees' the HD, but still cannot access it.
I think perhaps the boot sector of the disc has become corrupted?
Anyone got any other ideas of what else to try before I have to go and take it to some 'expert' and pay through the nose??

Stick it in the freezer (in a waterproof bag) overnight, then plug it back into your PC. Leave it on a bag of ice whilst plugged into the PC.

If it powers up, it'll stay alive for possibly just a few minutes and so use that time to grab all the data off it.

I did this with an internal HD, so hopefully it'll work with your external one too - depending on the nature of the failure of course.

[Platypus]

Good suggestion from CM but before that, remove the drive from its enclosure and try it with another USB adapter/enclosure, to eliminate some electrical fault in the enclosure.

But, TBH, sounds like the drive is knackered. Probably more serious than just the boot sector. If just one sector were knackered, you'd be able to see something. And the 'fix' software would definitely have had some success.

So if my suggestion fails, then the freezer it is. And don't buy WD again !

[Spacecadet]

My 1T USB3 (western digital) external hard drive stopped being recognised by my laptop a little while ago.
I have tried downloading several 'fix' softwares, but to no effect.
If I change the OS to linux then it 'sees' the HD, but still cannot access it.
I think perhaps the boot sector of the disc has become corrupted?
Anyone got any other ideas of what else to try before I have to go and take it to some 'expert' and pay through the nose??

Are you using windows 7?
have you tried different USB ports?
is there anything showing in device manager as unrecognised?
is there anything different showing in drive manager?
did you safely remove the drive when disconnecting or just pull the plug out?

The drive maybe formatted in such a way that linux doesn't like, hence why linux can see it but not read it.

[petergriffin]

If I change the OS to linux then it 'sees' the HD, but still cannot access it.

From Linux can you run 'fdisk -l' as root?
How is the disk recognized, ie /dev/sdb or /dev/sdc?

What's the partition table?

Can you run 'fsck /dev/sd<whatever>[1-2-3]' ?

[Vandalay]

I've had the same problem with the same size ext hdd by the same manufacturer. I found a solution:

Chuck the hard drive, it is kaput.

Sign up to Mozy pro or Dropbox Pro.

[doodab]

I had a WD passport external drive that stopped working, the actual drive was fine when put into a new USB housing.

[Sysman]

I had a WD passport external drive that stopped working, the actual drive was fine when put into a new USB housing.

I've got one of those and it stopped working one very hot day last summer. Left it turned off overnight and it came back fine.