Working with large quantities of information? You know the panic moment when you realize that you need something that you deleted a long time ago. This is the subject of this post : Best ways to Western Digital hard drive data recovery. 1st lets start with some general data recovery tips, valid for all type of data devices, PC’s, Mac’s, phones.
Don’t buy cheap storage devices. eBay is filled with SD cards, hard drives, and thumb drives that cost merely a fraction of their brand-name counterparts. They may seem like a great deal, but they rarely are. Manufacturers of these cheap storage devices often use discarded components that failed to pass strict quality-control requirements of renowned manufacturers. Unless you like playing with fire, avoid them at all cost.
If this works, use the working Mac to make copies of the files you need most (photos, documents, etc.). Once you’ve done that, you’re free to wipe or repair the disk, hopefully getting that original laptop working again. To do this, restart the computer and hold down CMD+R until you see the Apple logo or a spinning globe. From MacOS Utilities, select Disk Utility. Pick the topmost drive on the left, and select First Aid or Repair. If it works, this will solve lots of issues, including a wonky drive.
Thereafter, connect the hard drive to another computer as a secondary drive (non boot-up drive) and see if it shows up there. Even if it doesn’t, you can try to clone it and recover data from the clone. There are some great software available that help you in creating the clone. Recovery of Data from Dead or Corrupt Hard Drive With Software: Once the faulty hard drive has been repaired or you’ve managed to create its clone through some software, recovering the data on it becomes relatively simple through a reliable and efficient hard drive data recovery software. There are a number of good software available for this purpose like Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Windows.
If the TVS diodes don’t smell burnt and show the correct digits when measuring them, then the problem is the PCB itself. A replacement PCB is required, but not just a straight swap. There is an 8 pin ROM chip on most PCBs that contains unique firmware info that is required to start up the drive. This needs to be moved from the old PCB to the new in order for the replacement to work. Some hard drives, especially Western Digitals, do not have this 8 pin chip—the firmware is stored in the main controller which is virtually impossible to move.
Secure and reliable data backups are best done in the cloud. Use a reputable cloud service such as Google or Amazon to mirror your data from your computer to a secure virtual server. Cloud storage is very cheap and provides you with risk protection through automated backups, so set your data to back up automatically. You can also use external hard drives to create backups of your backups for extra peace of mind. The first line of defence for a computer should be a login PIN number, which offers a layer of protection against theft. Another tactic is to install (and update frequently) a firewall program and a well-regarded antivirus and malware utility. You can also encrypt your data, which makes it nearly impossible to read unless in possession of the encryption key. Update the OS frequently to pull in the latest security patches and use multifaceted tools that will warn you about possible phishing emails, unsecured websites and other hacking attempts. Recovery should always be seen as a last resort that’s used to pull the most important data. It’s best to treat a laptop or desktop as simply a gateway for reaching the internet and a way to power software. With the cloud, there’s no longer any reason to use a computer as a storage device. So, if something goes wrong with the machine, then simply buy a new one and dive back into work.
DoYourData can help you easily recover deleted, formatted or lost files from WD Elements portable hard drive including WD Elements 500GB, WD Elements 750GB, WD Elements 1TB, WD Elements 1.5TB, WD Elements 2TB etc. DoYourData also can recover lost data from other kind of devices, such as hard drive, USB drive, Memory card, SD card etc. See more details at Recover lost data from WD external hard drive.