My WD Passport. Is it screwed?

[gadgetsboyj]

My 160GB WD Passport stopped working yesterday. I'll tell you what happened:

 

1. I installed a QuickTime update on my hackintosh

2. It would go to the login screen and 5 mins after it would go back instead of logging in

3. I re-installed as I normally would

4. I told it to restore from backup

5. I plugged in my drive

6. It restored but failed at the very end

7. Since it almost finished I decided to touch the /var/db/.AppleSetupDone file so I didn't have to try again. All was as it normally was.

8. The drive didn't show up on the Desktop but it did in Disk Utility

9. I told it to mount and it failed

10. I hit Verify; it failed instantly

11. I hit Repair; it failed instantly

12. I re-installed again (BTW, its Kalyway Leopard 10.5.2 and it works pretty well.)

13. I selected restore from Time Machine backup and the drive never showed up. I restarted several times. Nothing worked. I tried new USB cables and new ports. Nothing.

14. I panicked.

15. I tried it in a Windows machine with known working MacDrive 7 and got nothing. The drive made any Windows PC freeze up. After unplugging the drive it would always unfreeze. I opened up My Computer (not literally I mean the icon on a Windows Desktop, LOL).

16. After unplugging the drive with My Computer open, it showed up for 2 seconds and then dissapeared. I'm thinking about getting DriveWarrior and trying it but I think if I reformat it will work. It still shows in DiskUtility.

 

I have my Time Machine backup and a lot of important files for school on it. Please someone help. I don't nessecerily need the drive running again. I just need all of the files off so I can put them on my other drive and restore the Time Machine backup and get all of those school files back. Please help.

 

To the 10 people who already viewed this, I'm done writing it.

 

Now I'm left with a barely working laptop wihtout and drivers for my stuff (they're all on the HD) and without yesterday's homework due tomorrowand, not to mention my CD of a science text book on the drive so I could mount it.

[adrock42]

I teach a video editing class and we require people to get External Firewire Drives. I know WD makes good internal drives but they dont quite get the FireWire / USB to SATA or IDE thing. At least 5 have died every semester for the past 3 years. Buy Lacie or G-Drive.

 

To fix the best thing you could do is disassemble the drive, pull it out of the case, get a second connection for the drive to your computer. I assume it's a 2.5" laptop drive, hopefully SATA, they sell a cheep bridge that is just the sata to usb at some big box electronic stores, very usefull. Of course this voids the warentee. Or you could send it away to WDs very own partner who does data recovery.... Ironic isnt it?

[gadgetsboyj]

I teach a video editing class and we require people to get External Firewire Drives. I know WD makes good internal drives but they dont quite get the FireWire / USB to SATA or IDE thing. At least 5 have died every semester for the past 3 years. Buy Lacie or G-Drive.

 

To fix the best thing you could do is disassemble the drive, pull it out of the case, get a second connection for the drive to your computer. I assume it's a 2.5" laptop drive, hopefully SATA, they sell a cheep bridge that is just the sata to usb at some big box electronic stores, very usefull. Of course this voids the warentee. Or you could send it away to WDs very own partner who does data recovery.... Ironic isnt it?

 

How much does the oficial data recovery cost? Is it covered by warranty? I just really need that data back. It doesn't however, seem to be the drive. It seems to be the partition. It shows up in Disk Utility and gives you the option to format it but when you click mount it fails. It also fails for Verify and Repair. It HAS to be the partiton but my entire PC is backed up to it and my PC needs to be restored from the Time Machine backup. Is there any way to force mount the partition? Even if I can't restore from it. I just need the data so I can transfer it to another HD and then I'll restore from that. I'll then format the drive and put the data back on. My internal HD might fail soon as the S.M.A.R.T Status shows up as "Failing". Someone help please.

[Synaesthesia]

How much does the oficial data recovery cost? Is it covered by warranty? I just really need that data back. It doesn't however, seem to be the drive.

It costs a lot. Try mounting the drive with the advice given by adrock42 + using Data Rescue 2 or similar.

[gadgetsboyj]

It costs a lot. Try mounting the drive with the advice given by adrock42 + using Data Rescue 2 or similar.

 

 

I did that and it was going to take 18 days to finish so I just gave up. I lost the pics from the cruise I went on and the videos of me and my friends. Its all gone. I wish I had it backed up another place too.

[WishingDigitalJosh]

next time you might want to try giving the service dept at Glyph a call. I think they can try and recover the data for your non-Glyph drive and usually get it back as long as the physical disk is not damaged. I think their rates are relatively reasonable, NOT in the hundreds or thousands like most others.

[gadgetsboyj]

next time you might want to try giving the service dept at Glyph a call. I think they can try and recover the data for your non-Glyph drive and usually get it back as long as the physical disk is not damaged. I think their rates are relatively reasonable, NOT in the hundreds or thousands like most others.

 

 

I got all of my stuff back by finding where I got it all. The only thing I lost was a report for school which I no longer need.