WD hard drive failure: My neighbor dropped her WD passport external drive with a ton of information and photos on it. That’s the back story, she called me for help! I checked it out...

Jeffcs Loc: Myrtle Beach South Carolina

My neighbor dropped her WD passport external drive with a ton of information and photos on it.
That’s the back story, she called me for help!
I checked it out the drive makes some noises but failed to run and it won’t show up on the computer.
I checked it out with my usb cord same results.
What I’m asking is where can she get her information and photos off of the drive?
I think you hogs

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

Try your local computer repair place. I was at one near me with a laptop cooling fan issue and the person in front of me was seeking hard drive recovery. Success will depend on the severity of actual damage to the disk(s).

Just Fred Loc: Darwin's Waiting Room

OnTrack data recovery services. They've been doing this for 35 years, and have rescued data off drives that had all been but destroyed. They aren't cheap, but if the photos are that valuable, then saving them is cheap by comparison.

https://www.ontrack.com/en-us/data-recovery/hard-drive

BebuLamar

If it's a spinning hard drive (not SSD) then they can recover the data but then it would be very expensive.

Jeffcs Loc: Myrtle Beach South Carolina

Just Fred wrote:

OnTrack data recovery services. They've been doing this for 35 years, and have rescued data off drives that had all been but destroyed. They aren't cheap, but if the photos are that valuable, then saving them is cheap by comparison.

https://www.ontrack.com/en-us/data-recovery/hard-drive

Thank You so very much
I have forwarded the website to my friend
It will be interesting to see what she decides to do
Jeff

tcthome Loc: NJ

Jeffcs wrote:

My neighbor dropped her WD passport external drive with a ton of information and photos on it.
That’s the back story, she called me for help!
I checked it out the drive makes some noises but failed to run and it won’t show up on the computer.
I checked it out with my usb cord same results.
What I’m asking is where can she get her information and photos off of the drive?
I think you hogs

Not going to help but tell your friend it is the reason for a second back-up copy or 2.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

tcthome wrote:

Not going to help but tell your friend it is the reason for a second back-up copy or 2.

Exactly. I'd think too the new models are 'safer'. Jeffcs, have your friend (everyone) consider 2 x 4TB WB models. BestBuy has them listed at $80 each this morning. Assuming 4TB is a useful size for current and future needs. I've been living on this size for more than a decade, one primary and one backup of that primary storage.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Going forward after this is resolved, let me suggest an external USB connected SSD such as a Samsung T7 - dropping it is unlikely to be an issue.

Picture Taker Loc: Michigan Thumb

i had that problem over 20 years ago. lost all now I use 2 hard drives and two sets. That is I store all my pictures as taken by date (240124 is today YEAR MONTH DAY) on the different hard drives. I then upon finalizing my pictures, save on another set of 2 hard drives by title. i use 4 hard drives and the prices are worth it.
never recovered my old ones, the charge was $1,000.00 to try with a small chance to recover, at that time.

skibumpkin Loc: Lakes Region, Maine

It’s possible the drive itself is ok, but the interface between it and the computer broke. A repair shop should be able to get the drive out of the case and check its integrity.

Mainridge Loc: NW Mich, SW Fla

CHG_CANON wrote:

Exactly. I'd think too the new models are 'safer'. Jeffcs, have your friend (everyone) consider 2 x 4TB WB models. BestBuy has them listed at $80 each this morning. Assuming 4TB is a useful size for current and future needs. I've been living on this size for more than a decade, one primary and one backup of that primary storage.

At the risk of exposing my severe lack of technological expertise I have a question. I had someone initially set up my external hard drives on my computer for me during a Lightroom class. My memory is good but short. I can’t recall how he did it. The day will come when one of my drives will fail. Do you know a good on-line site that would walk a guy like me through the replacement process?

spaceytracey Loc: East Glacier Park, MT

Jeffcs wrote:

My neighbor dropped her WD passport external drive with a ton of information and photos on it.
That’s the back story, she called me for help!
I checked it out the drive makes some noises but failed to run and it won’t show up on the computer.
I checked it out with my usb cord same results.
What I’m asking is where can she get her information and photos off of the drive?
I think you hogs

Has she contacted WD support? They might be able to help.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

skibumpkin wrote:

It’s possible the drive itself is ok, but the interface between it and the computer broke. A repair shop should be able to get the drive out of the case and check its integrity.

Good advice.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Mainridge wrote:

At the risk of exposing my severe lack of technological expertise I have a question. I had someone initially set up my external hard drives on my computer for me during a Lightroom class. My memory is good but short. I can’t recall how he did it. The day will come when one of my drives will fail. Do you know a good on-line site that would walk a guy like me through the replacement process?

If we're talking about USB-connected external drives, like the Western Digital (WD) drives of my post and the OP, you can start by just copying the contents of your current drive to a new USB-connected drive. I bought mine together, at 4TB capacity each, and selected a 'red' box and 'blue' box for simplicity. If you follow the oft-repeated Lightroom "best practice" of maintaining your image files in YYYYMMDD named folders (example: 20240124-Disney Exhibit), you can easily find and copy ongoing changes to the primary drive to the secondary copy after that initial mass-copy of data. This mass-copy is performed outside of Lightroom, just using your computer's OS. Giving better, more details instructions is a matter of having a specific issue and / or actual equipment to describe. You also need to copy (back-up) the folder with your LRCAT.

MJPerini

Has any backup been done on this drive?
Because the clicking you are hearing is probably a read/write head.
On a spinning drive, some recovery is usually possible but it is slow and expensive.

I hate hearing these stories, we should all double check our Backups .......
I have had lots of drives fail over the years of all kinds, The only kind where I have never had a failure are the LaCie Rugged drives but they are also slow.