Working with big amounts of information? You know the panic moment when you realize that you need some information that you deleted a long time ago. This is the subject of this post : Western Digital hard drive data recovery. 1st lets start with some general data recovery tips, valid for all type of data devices, PC’s, Mac’s, phones.
Don’t buy cheap storage devices. eBay is filled with SD cards, hard drives, and thumb drives that cost merely a fraction of their brand-name counterparts. They may seem like a great deal, but they rarely are. Manufacturers of these cheap storage devices often use discarded components that failed to pass strict quality-control requirements of renowned manufacturers. Unless you like playing with fire, avoid them at all cost.
To make sure it’s the hard drive and not one of the many other things that can go wrong when starting up a computer, if possible, remove the hard drive and plug it into another computer. Lots of PCs make this easy, but for any device, the process will be easier with a tool kit and universal drive adapter. Once you’ve removed the drive, plug it into a working computer. If you can see that drive’s files on the working computer, pull out anything essential and make copies. Yes, this is a big ask, especially for anyone who hasn’t ripped apart a computer before. But this will at least determine if the drive is the part that failed.
Is the drive making a beeping sound on powering up? This is an indication of a mechanical failure. Either the drive is suffering from stiction (read/write heads of the drive parking over the data area of the platter instead of their dedicated ramp when not in use) or a seizure of the motor spindle around which the platters rotate (this can happen due to dropping of the drive). Both these failures need the drive to be opened and thus need it to be sent to a data recovery service center.
Having covered the ‘deleted data’ section of data recovery is all good and well, but what happens if your drive is not even being detected by your machine? Or your machine can see the drive, but just hangs when you try to access it? What about if the drive is completely dead and won’t even spin up? Let’s briefly cover the main components of a drive, see which components can fail, and what symptoms each failure might exhibit. PCB: This is the (often green) circuit board attached to the bottom of your drive. It houses the main controller (the equivalent of your computer’s CPU) along with many other electronic controllers. This is the interface that turns your 0s and 1s from the platter into usable data that your computer can understand.
Before you bring out the heavy guns, make sure that it’s not a connectivity problem. First, swap USB cables and ports to rule them out. Still no dice? Now, check if it’s a problem with the external drive’s enclosure itself. Eject the external USB drive from your computer, and if it’s powered by an adapter, unplug it from the wall outlet. It’s highly recommended that you ground yourself with an anti-static wristband before attempting this to avoid injuring yourself or damaging your drive further. Next, crack its case open then check the physical cables that connect the hard drive to your USB output. Note: The connections can either be IDE (wider connectors) or SATA (small connectors). Check for any loose cables and make sure that they’re firmly connected.
Do Your Data Recovery is the tool that you need to use in order to get all your files recovered, and you only need a few clicks to do it. One thing to considerate: If you want to recover all your data, do not save any new data on it, because it will reduces the chance of success. See extra info on Recycle bin data recovery.