Old My Book Essentials -- Any Options to Get Data?

WD External and Portable SSD External SSD for Windows
1

Many years ago (about 15) my My Book Essential Edition external drive stopped working. At the time, it wouldn’t even turn on. It went on a shelf. Today I pulled it down and plugged it in, and the light actually comes on. I cannot tell if it booted as it is not recognized by either my Windows 10 or my Windows 7 computer. So, I am wondering if there is some detection I can use to make the USB show it, or if this sounds like a dead system. I’m curious about the data, but it is probably not worth paying a fee to have someone go to extreme measures. Any pointers?

Model number: WD5000C032

2

If possible remove the internal hard drive and attach it to your computer using the SATA cable. It might show up.

3

I suggest you to try a Free Data Recovery tool to scan your drive & check whether the data could be recoverable or not. If it shows the desired result then you can proceed to update the software & recover unlimited data.

Here, I can recommend Stellar Data Recovery Free Edition software that can recover up to 1 GB data totally free of cost.

Hope it may help!

4

Thanks, I’m going to try that!

5

Thanks, I will look into. But I’m not sure if the drive is not even detectable how I could run something to test it?

6

If your drive is not showing in the system then there is a “Can’t Find Drive” option in the software. Before starting the scan select the Can’t Find Drive option & then run scan. Hopefully, you may get your desired data.