I have this 1TB WD external HD that is not recognized by my laptop .... it doesn't show up in gParted and if I open my bios with it pluged in my bios will not start just a blank page ....
I was wondering if I could reformat the drive thinking maybe it had lost it's way but without being recognized it's kinda hard .... LOL .... anyone have any ideas besides making a paper weight out of it ????? ....
Hi Frog.
Been looking around for answers and one solution to not getting into the BIOS is that your machine might be expecting to boot off the drive. General advice is to disable USB at boot time and/or disable Legacy USB support.
Another possibility is clash of firmware settings.
Something I have only just discovered is that WD external drives sometimes have a hidden Virtual CD partition and the only way to remove it is a low-level format using WD Diagnostic tool, but is no longer maintained:
Whilst it requires Windows, you could get round this by using Hiren's Boot CD and install/run the Diagnostic there.
How old is the drive? Could it be Caddy controller failure? Can the drive be easily removed from the Caddy?
Oh, and Hiren's Boot CD has a raft of HDD tools.
Is it shown in ''Disks''? What is on the Drive?
I haven't tried this...and it is a bit weird. Sometimes these mechanical hard drives get stuck, and one person said he got his drive unstuck by taking a hammer and going bang. LOL
Thanks swarf I'll tackle the first part after I wake up a bit more ... LOL ....
The drive is 2019 and I did get it out of the case and tried it with the same results .... more later ....
Not show in disks either ....
I did buy a magazine some time ago which had a supplement on HDDs and one method mentioned to attempt to revive a hard drive is to wrap it in cling film and put it in a freezer overnight.
Does it work on Windows?
Was that a joke? I would not do that ever.
No it was not a joke!
Yes I have heard of that also but never tried it ..... the drive was made in March 2019 .... so I expect it has used up it's usefullness ..... WD said I could return it to them and they could try to recover any data on it for a fee of course ..... LOL ....
Problem is I have no idea what was on the disc as the Mrs found it while cleaning out the spare bedroom and it isn't labeled ....
Guess it is just a lost cause ..... got a good Caddy anyway should any of the of the other 6 I have crack ..... I will destroy the HDD before trashing it just encase .....
Thanks to everyone for your replies to this thread ..... it was worth a try .... still kicking the ol' freezer and Cling Wrap trick what have I got to loose right .... LOL ....
Sorry I don't have any Windows OS on anything to try it out anymore ..... just Mint and Zorin .... there are some super programs out there for disk management using Windows .... I know as I had several ....
Nope he ain't joking I remember that trick from back in the good 'ol days but never tried it in fact I forgot all about it .... think I will give it a try but if I remember right it was used for an overheating HDD .... this one just sits here blinking away but nothing happens doesn't even get warm ....