External Hard Drive woes

[Richter888]

So let me start off by saying that I have never had any major issues with any hard drives personally(knock on wood). I like to think that I take good care of my electronics. This is really frustrating.

So, randomly just two days ago my Western Digital 2TB My Book Essential hard drive stopped working. My laptop is a ASUS G50vt series computer. I bought it almost 4 years ago now. This is honestly hands down the best computer I've ever owned. Dead reliable for all this time. Now let me go over the symptoms and stupid shit thats happened the past couple days.

When plugged into my laptop and having explorer open (specifically the "computer" window where you can see all drives), it will freeze after several seconds. I can't exit the window nor select anything within it. Now with this being said, I can use other things on the computer, just not file explorer. External hard drive spins up, but then slows right back down after a couple seconds and the light stops blinking. No ones home suddenly. I can hear the drive idling fine. No unusual clicking from this drive. This leads me to believe the HD itself is fine.

Now, when I unplug the HD the window will unfreeze and I'll get a short glimpse of the HD, but quickly disappears. I then tried opening Device manager. Now it would recognize that there was a mass storage device connected, but not specifics. I know in the past it would show 1130 something something Western Digital blah blah. Not anymore. So I know the computer is seeing the drive, but no communication is going down. Hmmm.

Unfortunately after doing this I started having issues with my computer. All my USB ports stopped working. I tried to run disk checker, but it wouldn't work. Then it just got really bad. Had WinMail errors when I would start up, booted slow, ran slow, etc... Turns out, the computer hasn't been defragmented in over 3 years. Something happened a long time ago that corrupted/erased the registry files for defragger. I had it on a scheduled runs this whole time, but never really watched it. It would start defragging and stop a few seconds later still saying, "Your system performance can be improved."

Now I had to go through some major ass pain to replace those files and getting the computer to defrag. The computer itself runs great now, but why the HD caused such major issues to instantly become much worse is beyond me. It highlighted some major issues with my laptop.

Back to the HD. I did some research. Someone else had a similar issue with the same extact model drive. This guy however found that his hard drive was fine. **EDIT** I explain below what action he took below to fix his issue. Sorry for the convoluted description here. **EDIT**

This is where I need you guy's opinions. Now external HD have a HD controller. Fair enough, controls and communicates with the drive. Now Western Digital aparently uses a specific encryption with their drives. These are unique to the model of PCB that is assembled with the drive. The guy apparently went and bought another 2TB West Digit drive and took the controller off the new drive and installed it on the old. Viola! His was working again.

SO, I bought another drive just like mine. Well **** me sideways with a brick it had a different mother ****ing PCB. Apparently there are several different boards and the odds of getting the particular one I need is about 1 in 4. So now I gotta return this HD and figure something out.

I found the boards online by using the PCB number... They cost more than buying the HD from the damn store! These companies know people need this stuff for my situation and charge rediculous prices for them. The cheapest I found was $100 + international shipping (I'm deployed).

What should I do? Suck up the cost of one of these boards or keep trying different hard drives? I don't want to piss off the people at the BX, but I'm desperate.

Sorry for the long read. I'm just so frustrated. And of course this happens while I'm deployed. I have about 1.2TB of movies, games, videos, music, etc on this drive along with half my life! I really cant lose this stuff. I wont even bother trying to get it all back(some stuff is backed up on a old 500GB drive I have at home).

Cliffs:
External hard drive goes bad

Causes laptop to go bonkers

Fixed bonkers laptop

Attempted to fix drive, to no avail

Think I found issue, which is the PCB that controls the HD

The PCB in question costs more than the HD

Pissed off that a tiny cicuit board costs more than a 2 TB hard drive

End...

 

[Torch10th]

Amazon.com: StarTech SuperSpeed USB 3.0 eSATA Hard Drive Docking Station with Cooling Fan: Electronics

Amazon.com : Western Digital Caviar Black 2 TB SATA III 7200 RPM 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Internal Desktop Hard Drive - WD2002FAEX : Computer Internal Hard Drives : Computers & Accessories

Problem solved

 

[Richter888]

Amazon.com: StarTech SuperSpeed USB 3.0 eSATA Hard Drive Docking Station with Cooling Fan: Electronics

Amazon.com : Western Digital Caviar Black 2 TB SATA III 7200 RPM 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Internal Desktop Hard Drive - WD2002FAEX : Computer Internal Hard Drives : Computers & Accessories

Problem solved

That docking station wouldn't be a bad idea at all. I'm not super tech savy. I know just enough to get me around. Basics really.

Unfortunately, I need to recover my data first. I would then seriously contemplate this setup.

Torch, what do you think about the situation? I wont be able to hook up my drive directly to the motherboard or any other method. Its encrypted. I must transfer it onto a formatted drive after I find a new PCB(which hopefully is my issue). You got any ideas?

 

[97snakebite]

im a DJ and have several WD External HDs all USB powered and have never had a issue.. been running the same one for 3 yrs now

 

[Torch10th]

That docking station wouldn't be a bad idea at all. I'm not super tech savy. I know just enough to get me around. Basics really.

Unfortunately, I need to recover my data first. I would then seriously contemplate this setup.

Torch, what do you think about the situation? I wont be able to hook up my drive directly to the motherboard or any other method. Its encrypted. I must transfer it onto a formatted drive after I find a new PCB(which hopefully is my issue). You got any ideas?

If you don't trust yourself with it, I would find a reputable repair shop to attempt to recover the data. They can put it on a new drive for you where you can then get it back on your computer if you need. The alternative is to disassemble the unit yourself and piece together the necessary power and data transfer cables necessary to have the drive communicate with your computer. Since you're talking about a laptop, I'd just opt out of doing that all together, unless you really feel like digging in to it's guts.

Keep in mind that what I've just shown you is exactly what a MyBook is. The only difference is that the MyBook has it's own little nifty case with power supply and some cool lights. Otherwise they stuff it with one of their low quality, slow drives.

The dock I've shown has USB 3.0 data transfer available. However if you use it actually as an external SATA drive, you gain further bandwidth, which turns the drive in to more than just a storage utility. It functions then as a normal drive that's built in to your computer.

Heck I edit video and audio from mine occasionally if I don't have time to move data.

 

[Richter888]

If you don't trust yourself with it, I would find a reputable repair shop to attempt to recover the data. They can put it on a new drive for you where you can then get it back on your computer if you need. The alternative is to disassemble the unit yourself and piece together the necessary power and data transfer cables necessary to have the drive communicate with your computer. Since you're talking about a laptop, I'd just opt out of doing that all together, unless you really feel like digging in to it's guts.

Keep in mind that what I've just shown you is exactly what a MyBook is. The only difference is that the MyBook has it's own little nifty case with power supply and some cool lights. Otherwise they stuff it with one of their low quality, slow drives.

The dock I've shown has USB 3.0 data transfer available. However if you use it actually as an external SATA drive, you gain further bandwidth, which turns the drive in to more than just a storage utility. It functions then as a normal drive that's built in to your computer.

Heck I edit video and audio from mine occasionally if I don't have time to move data.

Unfortuanetly my computer only supports USB 2.0. I wouldn't be able to use it to its full potential. I really want to change my internal drive over to solid state. Im deployed though, so getting any recovery service or parts is a real pain.

A friend of mine just made the suggestion to use another power supply. He had a similar issue once and said the replaced his power supply and it fixed it. I will try it when I get back to my computer.

 

[MysticRob]

Curious how you know the external drive is bad. Did you try plugging it into a different machine to verify? I ask because from the description you give of your laptop it sounds as though it has multiple issues of its own. I would verify external drive operation on a different machine. I would also reinstall the OS and relevant drivers on your laptop and go from there.

 

[01Jes]

Had some issue long ago with western digital. Went Lacie and nvr looked back.

 

[Smacked_in_ATL]

So you tore apart an external drive and now you trying to return it?

 

[Richter888]

So you tore apart an external drive and now you trying to return it?

I didnt "tear" it apart. Only the outer case was removed which slides off. Saw it had a different board. put it back together. Lesson learned.

**EDIT**
I also thought about keeping the drive. I was going to reformat it and start with a blank slate. Get a generic drive controller with a generic case. Once I hopefully pull the information off the current drive, I will put it all on the blank drive. That way if I have a bad controller again(assuming that is the end issue), it will be cheap and easy to source parts and it will be backed up on two drives though it would be a pain to back it up on both all the time.

 

[Smacked_in_ATL]

I didnt "tear" it apart. Only the outer case was removed which slides off. Saw it had a different board. put it back together. Lesson learned.

**EDIT**
I also thought about keeping the drive. I was going to reformat it and start with a blank slate. Get a generic drive controller with a generic case. Once I hopefully pull the information off the current drive, I will put it all on the blank drive. That way if I have a bad controller again(assuming that is the end issue), it will be cheap and easy to source parts.

I don't trust USB externals as far as I can throw them... Off site backup for me plus a couple internal data drives.

 

[Richter888]

I don't trust USB externals as far as I can throw them... Off site backup for me plus a couple internal data drives.

I honestly wish I could put another drive in my laptop, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't have a provision for it. I really want to change over to solid state for the OS.

 

[thomas91169]

pull the drive out and mount it on a removable drive mount/docking station like listed above.

Your data is still there. If im reading your post correctly, that little pcb board is just usb/power shit. The HDD itself is still a sata interface. If there is nothing wrong with the HDD, it should spin up and you should have access to all your data.

Unless you dropped it and caused the platters to scratch the rotating discs, you shouldnt have to worry. Worst case if you cant recover your data, send it out if its that important. DO NOT try to repair the drive yourself. You will cause more damage and make it harder or impossible for a pro to do it.

 

[Richter888]

pull the drive out and mount it on a removable drive mount/docking station like listed above.

Your data is still there. If im reading your post correctly, that little pcb board is just usb/power shit. The HDD itself is still a sata interface. If there is nothing wrong with the HDD, it should spin up and you should have access to all your data.

Unless you dropped it and caused the platters to scratch the rotating discs, you shouldnt have to worry. Worst case if you cant recover your data, send it out if its that important. DO NOT try to repair the drive yourself. You will cause more damage and make it harder or impossible for a pro to do it.

I wish that were the case. From what I understand from online research(because the internet cant lie, lol) is that the WD hard drive controllers for my books encrypt the data. The encyption is supposedly unique to the model of board. This is why I'm trying to hunt it down. If I understand, I cant just mount it and read it like any other drive. The information will be there, but I can't read it.

I thought about using the moral computers here if they'll let me. I'm pretty sure they have windows 7 on them. I read somewhere that it had a HD repair tool that works pretty well. Another desperate option.

MysticRob also makes an excellent point. I will try pluging in the drive on another computer. I'm really going to feel pretty retarded if it works one someone elses computer. Should've done it in the first place, but getting someone willing to plug in a hard drive that was causing problems on my computer might be a task in itself.

 

[Steve@TF]

one of my ext hdd took a dump last year. i was freaking out. thought i was going to have to pay big $$ to retrieve it.

did a lot of reading online and found this software
Data Rescue 3 Review & Rating | PCMag.com

downloaded it directly online. worked like a CHAMP! i was able to pull all my stuff off my ext hdd.

 

[wvmystichrome]

Over the last 3 - 4 years I have lost probably 5 different external HDs. It sucks. So now I buy the pocket ones for stuff I really want to keep and then disconnect them and put them in my safe. I have had a pocket 320gb one for almost 6 years and no problems. OBTW I have lost HP and WD brands. Seagate's have lasted the longest for me. I am now running, periodically 4 of them and one WD. Good luck. Always remember to back up your really important stuff to cd or dvd. Just in case.

 

[venom_inc]

First, check the external on a different PC. If it works then I would reccomend updating/reinstalling your chip set to your MOBO. Run all Windows updates and see if that fixes it.

 

[desertt5]

I had the exact issue with my WD drive. Mine ended up being the USB port on the board itself. One of the four lines was broken off at the solder connection. Found it using a multimeter and ohming them out. New USB port soldered on to the board and got all my data off. Then I trashed the WD case and bought a different external enclosure.

May be worth looking at that.

 

[quad]

OP - Hard drives will fail that's a fact. And CDs / DVDs are no more secure. I've had CDs that developed holes in the layers after a few years - and they were stored in soft covers in an enclosed case!

That said I've been pretty lucky with drives over the past 25 years and only had 3-4 personal drives fail on me. I don't defrag drives because I feel it adds a lot of stress to the mechanical parts. I also throw as much RAM as feasible in my machines. The goal is not to have the computer paging out RAM to the swap file on the drive. It just causes unnecessary strain.

I've tried to recover data from an external by taking the drive out of the enclosure and placing it in a zip bag and freezing it for 1-2 hours. For some this has worked but not for me. I have had success baking a graphics card in the oven for 390 degrees for 8-10 minutes though. So tricks like these sometimes work.

Your best bet is to make multiple backups on different drives and computers and store in different locations. Cloud storage is a nice option but when we are talking gigabytes of data it becomes limited. Skydrive offers 7gb I think, Dropbox 2 and Google Drive 5 or 7.

Synology has very nice 4 bay storage enclosures for around 1200 when configured with 4 (2) tb drives. They have the ability to function as their own cloud storage like dropbox, skydrive etc. so you can have multiple devices sync with the enclosure.

 

[texaswrx]

OP - Hard drives will fail that's a fact. And CDs / DVDs are no more secure. I've had CDs that developed holes in the layers after a few years - and they were stored in soft covers in an enclosed case!

That said I've been pretty lucky with drives over the past 25 years and only had 3-4 personal drives fail on me. I don't defrag drives because I feel it adds a lot of stress to the mechanical parts. I also throw as much RAM as feasible in my machines. The goal is not to have the computer paging out RAM to the swap file on the drive. It just causes unnecessary strain.

I've tried to recover data from an external by taking the drive out of the enclosure and placing it in a zip bag and freezing it for 1-2 hours. For some this has worked but not for me. I have had success baking a graphics card in the oven for 390 degrees for 8-10 minutes though. So tricks like these sometimes work.

Your best bet is to make multiple backups on different drives and computers and store in different locations. Cloud storage is a nice option but when we are talking gigabytes of data it becomes limited. Skydrive offers 7gb I think, Dropbox 2 and Google Drive 5 or 7.

Synology has very nice 4 bay storage enclosures for around 1200 when configured with 4 (2) tb drives. They have the ability to function as their own cloud storage like dropbox, skydrive etc. so you can have multiple devices sync with the enclosure.

Not to get too far off subject, but I learned my lesson about backing up items. My 500GB WD external drive started clicking one day and I could not access it. I tried the freezer thing as well. No luck. So, i stored it away and my option looks to be to send it to clean room for recovery or moving it into another case. The only thing I want off it are pictures of son. Thanks for any tips.