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I purchased a new WD 2tb. small type 3.0 USB ext drive. I transfered a lot of important data from HD to the new drive.
Now the drive refuses to read. I tried various cables to no avail. I need to return to store for refund but am worried about the contents.
If it goes back to factory or whatever, & get it working, it will all my personal stuff. Short of smashing it with a hammer ( but then no refund) what can I do to clear the contents??????
What model no of drive? Do you get any error messages when you try to access it? Does it show up in Windows file explorer or Disk Management (run > diskmgmt.msc)?
I wish he had posted back. We all could have learned form his post.
THIS WILL THE THIRD TIME I'VE SENT THIS. I have no idea why these posts did not go through??
Oh My! my message did not go through. I sent a reply around 1:00 AM this morning? Also it won't let me stay signed in??he request failed due to a fatal device hardware error.
I bought this brand new at Target. I brought it home & transferred the material from the older WD 1tb to the new 2tb HD. I did a copy rather than cut & paste.
Good thing because if I had done the cut & paste, I would have lost everything. The transfer went ok but took a while.
Anyway, thanks fink for the reply. The new HD is a WD My Passport 2tb. I have tried DiskPart, Disk manager to no avail.
In Disk Manager, it shows that the HD needs to be initialized, but when I try to do that I get this error message: THE REQUEST FAILED DUE TO A FATAL HARDWARE ERROR
The computer is my wife's. It was a 4 or 5 year old all-in-one Dell . I plan to open it up & install a new HD
I purchased a new Dell tower type to get her going. It came with Windows 11 which is going to be a headache for her.
I happen to have a PC with Win 11 of which I am still learning to operate myself.
It looks like Windows can see the drive. Your error could be dur to the drive, or the USB interface.
Have you tried the Western Digital utility software to see what it might say?
https://documents.westerndigital.com...y-passport.pdf
You can also check the S.M.A.R.T. status.
https://www.elevenforum.com/t/check-...ndows-11.8778/
If your drive would need to go back to Western Digital in case of a failure that you cannot repair yourself, then it is possible that your data would be recoverable. If it turns out that it is the USB interface part of the drive that has failed, then data recovery might be as easy as attached the actual drive to another interface and presto - your data magically reappears. if the drive electronics has failed, replacing that might also make your data visible.
The usual rule for data storage on drives is that if you do not want the data to be potentially recoverable, then make sure that the confidential files, or the entire drive are encrypted, or else if the drive fails or is no longer used, then it is destroyed to prevent any access to the data that was on it.
[B]I am done with this drive. I want to destroy the contents of this drive before returning. How can I do that. [B]
I would also like to know why I cannot stay logged on this web site. I click REMBER ME. but nothing happens. I have to relog in each time ??
For the VirtualDr login issue, do you have any software or settings that might be clearing your browser cookies when you close the browser or log off / shut down Windows?
If you want to return the drive for a refund, it would need to be intact. You only option would be to see if you could open it up, which might void the warranty, and then extract the drive and connect it directly to another computer interface to see if you can securely erase (not just delete) the data with software like Eraser. If that works, you could then reassemble the drive and return it.
THanks for all the input. I see no way of opening the drive without messing up the cover. I thought if I hook up a cable & sent some sort of a current dc or ac that it might destroy the contents. Would that work ??
Opening that drive...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we9t1eOLj4o
https://youtu.be/FhHNkXScYfY
You didn't give the exact model number, but WD external portable drives often have a proprietary connector. So even opening the case probably wouldn't help.
Did you try booting to a Linux disc like UBCD and running DBAN?
For what it's worth, the exact model number is: WDBYVGOO2OBBK-WESN. As for the linux disk etc, I have not dealt with that kind of stuff in years. I'm kinda running out of time
on this, as you only have 14 days to return items. I'll do some more research today if possible. Right now, I have so irons in the fire, I cant think straight.
Thanks tho, for all the help. It's greatly appreciated. If I can find a solution, I'll post back.........
How to create a bootable Linux disc or USB flash drive:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to...nux-usb-drive/
https://www.howtogeek.com/1261/creat...-the-easy-way/
https://www.wikihow.com/Boot-Linux-f...-on-Windows-10
https://itsfoss.com/create-live-usb-...tu-in-windows/
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/build-...linux-live-cd/
https://tutonics.com/articles/how-to...le-live-cddvd/
I got rid of the hd. Thanks for all of the web sites. Not sure If I'll need them, But I will keep them on hand anyway....
Many thanks for all the help......