Ext HDD sponateously uninitialized itself. Possible fix?

DNW

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My Western digital mybook 3TB ext HDD was functioning fine without issue. I woke up one day to find that the drive had disappeared from windows explorer and only appeared as "mass storage device" in the device manager. When I list the drives in the command prompt, it appears as online, but has 0B total space. In the disk manager the only info - or lack thereof - is "unknown" and "not initialized". There is no info regarding its volume (see pictures).

I did get a little fed up with it and decided to initialize the disk and start over, but I was met with an error that read something like " cannot initialize due to I/O device error" (see picture again). It seems like my computer acknowledges that there is a blank disk with 0B total space.

I tried to plug the drive into my computer and boot using ubuntu 14.10 live to see if my disk could be read in that OS, but the drive was nowhere to be found.

The drive contains data that I would really like to retrieve, so I am racking my brain trying to figure this out. The only other case I could find similar to mine is here: Previously functional USB3 external hard drive shows not initialized - Windows 7 Help Forums

All other search results seem to show people having issues with 'like-new' drives (meaning that there is info about the drive in disk manager prior to initialization), so I'm afraid I can't find many sources for comparison to help with this. I have posted about this elsewhere: External HDD uninitialized on its own. Can I recover data? - Tech & Computer Forums.

I would like to try every possible fix before resorting to disassembling the drive enclosure and putting the HDD inside my computer. Thank you for reading, and all input is very appreciated!
 

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My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8.0
Sounds like the external drive interface is toast, hopefully not the drive. May have no other choice than remove it from the external case and try in another USB caddy or drive bay.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Acer V3 771G-6443
    CPU
    i5-3230m
    Motherboard
    Acer VA70_HC (U3E1)
    Memory
    8GB DDR3 PC3-12800 (800 MHz)
    Graphics Card(s)
    HD4000 + GeForce GT 730M
    Sound Card
    Realtek High Definition Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    17" Generic PnP Display on Intel HD Graphics 4000
    Screen Resolution
    1600x900 pixels
    Hard Drives
    Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250 GB
    ADATA SSD SP900 128GB
    PSU
    90 watt brick
    Mouse
    Bluetooth
    Antivirus
    Comodo
    Other Info
    Asus RT-AC56R dual-band WRT router (Merlin firmware). Intel 7260.HMWWB.R dual-band ac wireless adapter.
A lot of people are having issues with the MyBooks. I would contact Western Digital and see if they will replace the drive. If you are going to try and recover any items on it. Try booting up with a Linux LiveDVD and see if the drive shows up when you plug it in. Then you may be able to move the files from the MyBook, to another drive.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Linux Mint 17.2
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Toshiba Satellite C850D-st3nx1
    CPU
    AMD E1-1200 APU with Radeon (tm) HD Graphics 1.40 GHZ
    Memory
    12GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    AMD Radeon™ HD 7310 Graphics
    Sound Card
    Realtek HD
    Monitor(s) Displays
    LCD
    Screen Resolution
    1366 x 768
    Hard Drives
    Crucial M500 240GB SSD
    Mouse
    Logitech M525
    Internet Speed
    45/6 - ATT U-Verse
    Browser
    Google Chrome
    Antivirus
    None needed. It is Linux.
    Other Info
    Arris NVG589 Gateway; Router - Cisco RV320; Switch - Netgear GS108 8-Port Switch & Trendnet TEG-S50g 5-Port Switch; Access Points - Engenius ECB350, Trendnet TEW-638APB; NAS - Lenovo ix2-4; Printer - Brother HL-2280DW; Air Print Server - Lantronix XPrintServer

    A/V UPS - Tripp-Lite Smart 1500LCD 1500 Va/900 W.
A lot of people are having issues with the MyBooks. I would contact Western Digital and see if they will replace the drive. If you are going to try and recover any items on it. Try booting up with a Linux LiveDVD and see if the drive shows up when you plug it in. Then you may be able to move the files from the MyBook, to another drive.
Thanks for the input. WD customer support was unhelpful in offering a solution. Maybe I'll call back and ask for a replacement drive.

I tried booting up with ubuntu 14.10 but the drive was nowhere to be found.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8.0
Then the drive is toast.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Linux Mint 17.2
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Toshiba Satellite C850D-st3nx1
    CPU
    AMD E1-1200 APU with Radeon (tm) HD Graphics 1.40 GHZ
    Memory
    12GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    AMD Radeon™ HD 7310 Graphics
    Sound Card
    Realtek HD
    Monitor(s) Displays
    LCD
    Screen Resolution
    1366 x 768
    Hard Drives
    Crucial M500 240GB SSD
    Mouse
    Logitech M525
    Internet Speed
    45/6 - ATT U-Verse
    Browser
    Google Chrome
    Antivirus
    None needed. It is Linux.
    Other Info
    Arris NVG589 Gateway; Router - Cisco RV320; Switch - Netgear GS108 8-Port Switch & Trendnet TEG-S50g 5-Port Switch; Access Points - Engenius ECB350, Trendnet TEW-638APB; NAS - Lenovo ix2-4; Printer - Brother HL-2280DW; Air Print Server - Lantronix XPrintServer

    A/V UPS - Tripp-Lite Smart 1500LCD 1500 Va/900 W.
I bought the very same HD couple of years ago from COSCO, only one day when I plugged in, the disk became RAW/Unknown. I finally opened the enclosure and connected directly to the internal sata port and found out the disk was indeed having bad sectors. However, I was able to retrieve most of the data from it (mostly just Movies), returned back to COSCO without question asked.

Since the disk was going bad and apparently the USB interface in the enclosure did not know how to deal with it or toast and let's hope that's what happened to yours.

FYI, External HD is only designed for back up purpose and even that, it's not reliable. For sure It is not for constant use. The heat generated inside the enclosure is way, way too hot and there's no room for heat to dissipate and if you touch it, it is burning hot. The ideal temperature for HD is <= 42 C. All my internal HD's are almost 6 year old and have the fans blowing directly to them, make a little noise but keep the HD's temp to around 30C and they are all good.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8.1x64PWMC Ubuntu14.04x64 MintMate17x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home Brewed
    CPU
    I7 4970K OC'ed @4.7 GHz
    Motherboard
    MSI-Z97
    Memory
    16 GB G-Skill Trident X @2400MHZ
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450
    Sound Card
    X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dual HP-W2408
    Screen Resolution
    1920X1200
    Hard Drives
    256 GB M2 sm951, (2) 500GB 850EVO, 5TB, 2 TB Seagate
    PSU
    Antec 850W
    Case
    Antec 1200
    Cooling
    Danger Den H20
    Keyboard
    Logitech
    Mouse
    Logitech Performance Mouse MX
    Internet Speed
    35/12mbps
    Browser
    Firefox
What you can try is removing the drive from the case, connecting it to your PC, and running Recuva to see if it finds the drive. IF it does, you might be able to recover some files and folders from the drive.

That said, "I/O error" is a bad sign and when I've encountered that, it means the drive has had a hardware failure -- and in that case, only disassembly and repair by a commercial data recovery outfit will get the drive working again.
 

My Computer

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