My house was hit by lightening a few years ago and it fried my computers- so I very quickly went out and bought a WD 500g mybook external hard drive which I have everything stored on.
Please keep in mind I am not an expert by any means and do not have a lot of experience with these types of things other than simple computer installs ect. but I would not consider myself a beginner… I am just desperate to recover my files without having to pay someone $300 to try to do it for me.
A few weeks ago, my computer simply stopped recognizing it was there. When I would power it off or on or reset it it would attempt to load, but the blue light would constantly blink. First think I did was try a new USB cord, which changed nothing- I also have tried it on three different computers- Nothing.
I read about taking the hard drive out of the casing (yes I realize it voids any warranty but at this point I am more concerned with my data than getting any sort of a replacement) so I carefully removed it-
I put it in my computer hooked up to a SATA drive- It did not show up in Disk management or under my computer. I went into BIOS and did see a removable disk, but if I set it as boot priority, obviously it would not work- I do not know if there was something else I should have done to get it to work in BIOS.
I then hooked it into another computer where I have a second hard drive- Took mine out and put this one in its place since I know that I am able to access my second hard drive on this computer- It simply didnt show up.
I then took it to Best Buy- And they informed it that the hard drive was trash- That her machine would not even get it to power up at all… that data recovery was not even possible and i should throw the hard drive away and start over.
I took it to another computer store who told me they could send it out and attempt data recovery at the tune of $300+
I brought the drive home- Hooked back up the USB board and plugged it back in as if it was again a external- It turned on- light begin to blink as before- but I can also hear and feel it spinning- I am not hearing any strange sounds, nothing sound loose inside, it just sounds like it spins for a few minutes, then stops- and that light constantly blinks.
I then read online that someone mentioned that with these they often have an encryption built in to the usb connection which makes it so the hard drive will not power up as an internal hard drive or without that usb board on it… Anyone know if there is truth to that?
I am desperate to get this to function so I can get my files off of it- Please, if anyone has any ideas what I can do, please share.
Thank you in advance-
Brooke
