WD 3tb external hard drive not recognized

My 3TB hard drive was almost full and all of a sudden it was no longer recognized by my computer… Checked forums, researched online, changed cords, left unplugged two days then tried again and NOTHING worked, just a rapidly blinking light. I called computer tech who fixed my tower when it went down and asked him. Well, this is a very common problem apparently. He said these hard drives are not for continual use, they can only be on and running for three hours tops, no longer. Have to be unplugged from power or they OVERHEAT AND FRY! There is no fan cooling them off inside that black sealed up case. To use them for playing movies or music etc they need to be pulled out of the case (yes voids warranty) and put in an external case with a cooling fan blowing across circuit board to keep it cool. Turns out this guy puts together hard drives with cooling cases just for this purpose so I’m, buying one from him. I lost everything on the hard drive and learned a hard lesson. I did not read all the instructions that came with my WD or would have read FOR DATA TRANSFER ONLY, NOT FOR CONTINUED USE LONGER THAN 3 HOURS. I had to join and post this on here since so many are having the exact same issue. Hope this helps everyone else.

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Hello,

I’m really sorry to hear about the issue with the drive.

I have an external hard drive connected to my media player and I have spent more than 5 hours playing videos and music without any issues.

Now, I have my drive drive connected to the wall outlet and is on a open area.

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Hello all :slight_smile:

First of all, LizE71, thank you for the information - very helpful :slight_smile:

I have 2 external hard drives 500 GB and 750 GB. My 500 GB HD is only recognized by the media player , i.e. I can still view videos, but I when I connect it to my notebook - it just doesn’t exist. Anything I could do to rescue the data??

750 GB hard drive is not recognized by any device, including the media player, so from what I understand from the first post, there is no hope? I’ve even tried icare data program just in case, but  no luck…

Thank you!