# WD Elements 1023 External Hard Drive Unaccessible



## wintaer

Hello,

I bought a WD Elements 1023 USB 1TB external hard drive about two/three weeks ago. I transferred about 300 GB of files onto it and it worked fine until just last night when it no longer showed up on 'My Computer' anymore. It still shows up in the 'Safely Remove Hardware' window (without drive letter), in the 'Devices and Printers' window and in 'Disk Management' as well. However, when I open up 'Disk Management', it says that the disk is not initialized [1st attachment] and I can't initialize it because it's write protected (I'm guessing it's because I have files on it). I've tried plugging it into all three different USB ports on my Windows 7 HP Pavilion laptop and on my Windows 7 Toshiba netbook, but it didn't register on any of them.

I then tried running TestDisk from the "stickied" instructions, but Stage E gives me 'Partition: Read Error' [2nd attachment], and nothing showing up in Stage G and H.

Could anyone offer any advice as to what I can do to get my external hard drive working again without losing all the stuff that I have on there? 

Thanks,
wintaer


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## ronmetz

i have the same problem exactly as yours. i did everything i can to recover my data but i failed. if ever you find a solution, please let me know. Same with me also. thank you.


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## ronmetz

hi wintaer, 

i just wanna let you know that i forwarded (your question, our question about wd elements 1023) to WD website. i hope we get a prompt response


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## Jay_JWLH

Several things. First, I wasn't able to find any firmware update or warning about the product on the WD website. Secondly, all other problem people have had like that tends to have the same level of solutions. There is no write protection switch, and the problem can happen as quickly and unexpectedly as you have seen for yourself. Thirdly, good luck. I hope to hear of a practical solution in future. If not, hear that you have been given a replacement.


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## bards55

I have exactly the same problem.

Bought a 1TB WD drive
Reformatted it to FAT32 (using swiss knife) so that my DVD recorder could access it.
Loaded a heaps of movies onto it. - Worked fine.
Added some of my own files onto it, then gave it to my cousin to add more movies.
He completed the transfer of the rest of the movies and took some of the files I had added off it.
So far its worked on two laptops and a desktop.
I got the drive back today
Just plugged it in and can't access any files, same symptoms as the OP

Hope there is a solution, the drive is pretty full, I dont want to have to transfer all those files again!

Cheers


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## ronmetz

hello guys, 

WD website already responded to our concern regarding wd elements external hard drive. All solutions they gave me did not work. What they gave me is link to websites with the same problem and solution as ours. They do not have solid solution.

For now, i would rather have another brand.


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## wintaer

Hi all,

I ended up contacting WD and since it was still under warranty, got it replaced with another external. Other than that though, no solution. Sorry guys.

--wintaer


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## Jay_JWLH

Be wary of it this time around. Use it, but make sure there is nothing important on there, or you are keeping it constantly backed up. Hopefully this is just a one off, rather than an issue along the entire model line of their products.


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## Laudesan

I have just got this problem this morning. I am so stressed, all my business files are on this hard drive. It is only 4 months old max.

From everything I have been reading this morning, this is a common problem, so why the heck haven't they recalled the darn thing. (

I am praying someone comes up with a solution or I am fried.. (

JJ


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## Jay_JWLH

There is one thing that is very important to learn here. Keep a second copy of your important data somewhere else. They will not put a warranty on your data. You just get a replacement/repair.

Other good things to do, is to look up reviews, to see if there are any common problems before making the purchase. But if you have already made the purchase, then take it up with them and try to have them provide a replacement either directly or with the help of the retailer.

If anyone wants to sign up to this forum and complain that they are having the exact same problem, then go for it. But anyone seeking a solution to a problem should really begin their own thread, or else it might be done for you (but make your original post look out of context).


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## Laudesan

Jay_JWLH said:


> Other good things to do, is to look up reviews, to see if there are any common problems before making the purchase.


 I did that 4 months ago before I bought my terabyte. From the reviews, I thought I was getting a good product.

Now, I am sick of reading that WD is a good company, no they are not.  They know there is a problem, but they do nothing to fix it, nor do they offer reasonable support. The best they could offer me, was to go to one of their recommended sites for data removal, at a cost of $1000.00 - $1500.00, which they will not cover, and this process will deem their product warranty void.

This company sucks.


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## Jay_JWLH

Laudesan said:


> I did that 4 months ago before I bought my terabyte. From the reviews, I thought I was getting a good product.
> 
> Now, I am sick of reading that WD is a good company, no they are not.  They know there is a problem, but they do nothing to fix it, nor do they offer reasonable support. The best they could offer me, was to go to one of their recommended sites for data removal, at a cost of $1000.00 - $1500.00, which they will not cover, and this process will deem their product warranty void.
> 
> This company sucks.


Experiences certainly can and do vary, especially depending on what level of problem you are having. I've found that manufacturers handle basic problems quite easily, such as replacements, or troubleshooting with settings. But more complicated things tend to cause frustration for the end user because the representative isn't easily willing to elevate the problem, work outside the box, or have the knowledge to troubleshoot beyond what is probably a script. It must get quite repetitive and unmotivating in the phone support job. If you hate phone support though, I would strongly suggest email support, and make sure you explain the issue you are having quite clearly to them. Failing that.... in my country at least I would hold the retailer legally responsible, and take measures to complain effectively. I'd get somewhere.

Sometimes, when I am investigating reviews of a company or a product, I won't look at just reviews, I will look at all the bad things to judge how bad things can get. So seek out the worst things, to get a more balanced opinion.


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## Laudesan

I did email the company. Without satisfaction. Sure I can send my unit back through the retailer and get my refund, or replacement, but I will have lost all my files. I need those files, they are my livelihood.

Thanks for your help. I agree looking at the bad as well as the good in the reviews, will give one an overall feel for a product. Guess I just missed the bad this time.

Now I need to buy a new terabyte, and am scared of this happening again. No product is faultless.

PS

What gets me, is that this is a common problem with WD Elements hard drives. One would think they would have a solution by now..


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## Jay_JWLH

Would you like some help performing some file recovery of your own? Depending on the extend of the fault, I believe it is possible to recover the data. But one of the routes may void the warranty all together.


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## Laudesan

Yes please, I am not concerned about the warranty, the data is priceless.


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## ReviverSoft

1. Connect your external HDD to the PC
2. Restart your computer, access the BIOS, change the Boot Order to boot from the CD/DVD drive first
3. Place the Linux based LiveCD in the CD Drive and restart your computer
4. The computer should start reading off the disc and start loading the LiveCD
5. Once you arrive at the desktop, try to locate the external hard drive using the various utilities included. As such, you should see the drive listed right on the desktop, wherein you double-click the icon to view its contents.

But first, Select the  LiveCD of your choice, download its image (.ISO) file, burn the image onto a disc.

Should this not help in detecting and subsequently accessing your hard drive's content, you will need to opt for hardware level servicing where the technician will attempt to replace various key components to get the drive functioning again.

Hope this helps.


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## Jay_JWLH

I can offer a few good routes.

1. If the drive hasn't got a partition, but is still being detected, you can take a precaution by using DriveImage XML to take a raw copy of all the sectors off the disk as a backup. This will of course include everything whether it is deleted or not. You may even be able to extract files from that alone.

2. Although a paid for program, GetDataBack for (NTFS or FAT32) is a pretty good program. You can trial it first to check if and what is recoverable, and when you are ready to recover the data you can pay for it.

3. Format (but only quick format) the drive to make it available as a drive letter, and then use Recuva (free) to recover any deleted files off it. Since it was quick formatted, this will include all your previous files. Although in the case of data recovery, it is considered a bad idea to write to a disk that you are trying to recover data from, in case you overwrite any data.

4. Have a professional do it for you. Personally, I hate this idea because the last one that did it for me gave me back corrupted files that I couldn't use. He went ahead and did an expensive recovery which I got a discount for since they had gone that far when I was about to say no. So my faith in just anybody doing it is kind of broken, and they probably don't use a program anywhere near as good as the one I mentioned in point 2.

5. If there is something wrong with the enclosure, then you should pull it apart and use the drive itself using a USB adapter or plug it in directly to your motherboard (depending on if it is a 2.5 or 3.5 inch drive). Quite often the enclosure is the fault. However I read kind of recently someone talking about I think WD drives having a certain hardware micro-USB or something that might make using the drive without the particular enclosure more difficult if not impossible.


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## Laudesan

Jay thank you for your suggestions I will look into them.

I have the hard drive connected to this pc (Toshiba Laptop) I have drive manager open and I can see the WD Elements in there. I can see it in remove hardware safely too, but I cannot see it in my computer.


Image63 by JJ Bell, on Flickr


Image64 by JJ Bell, on Flickr


Image62 by JJ Bell, on Flickr


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## Jay_JWLH

How does it look in Disk Management?


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## Laudesan

Where do I find Disk Management?


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## Laudesan

[/url] Image65 by JJ Bell, on Flickr[/IMG]
The WD drive does not show up here in My Computer and it should.

I do have a new drive see the last one? BD-ROM It was not there before this all started. I don't know how to delete it.


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## Jay_JWLH

I see how hard it is to find on the start menu. From the start menu, right click on Computer, and click Manage. This will bring up Computer Management. On the left pane under Storage, click Disk Management. Once that loads up, you can remove the left and right panes by clicking the two pushed in buttons at the top. Try to maximise the windows to get a good screenshot. You can upload the image onto this forum as an attachment if you like.

No surprise on the BD-ROM drive. I have it as well, but it is there for a reason. Are you using any optical disk emulating programs like Alcohol, or Daemon Tools on your computer? It is a blue-ray optical drive, common enough for emulators since it now enables them to mount blue ray images, as well as everything before then.


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## Laudesan

Yes I do have Daemon Tools on my computer. Does that mean I can ply Blue Ray dvd's?


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## Jay_JWLH

Nope. But if you had an image of a Blu Ray disk on your computer, you could mount it. It's just a virtual drive after all.

For starters, initialise it by right clicking on the area that has Disk 2 / Unknown in it, and clicking the option to initialise it. I would NOT recommend formatting the drive if you have data on it you don't want to loose. DriveImageXML and Recuva won't do anything to it unless it is available as a drive letter (formatted as something). Instead, you should give GetDataBack for NTFS a try. As a trial, it can tell you what files are available to recover, before you must purchase it.


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## Laudesan

When I click on Initialise disk, a pop-up comes up with a tick in Disk 2 and underneath "_Use the following partition style for the selected disks:_" MBR (Master Boot Record)
GPT (Guid Partition Table)

Note: The GPT partition style is not recognized by all previous versions of Windows. It is recommended for disks larger than 2TB. or disks used on Itanium-based computer.

The dot is in the MBR - So I clicked OK and a pop-up comes up Local Disk Manager (Red circle white cross) The media is write protected.

I have no intentions of formatting the drive as the data on it is all my work for the last 7 years. I am frantic to get it off.

I will give GetDataBack for NTFS a try. I am trying File Scavenger at present, with no luck. 21% done and there is nothing showing up


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## Jay_JWLH

Good. Tell us how it goes. Since the files aren't overwritten, they shouldn't be hard to recover unless there is a hardware fault preventing it. Using a read-only recovery tool is all that you need. But the fact that it says it is read only may not be the whole truth, however it once again indicates a fault with the drive. Depending on the capacity of the drive, and how much data you had stored, they can have an effect on how long the process takes to scan. For the first pass you don't have to do a deep scan, but if nothing comes up you should try something more comprehensive (and time consuming). With GetDataBack, choose Sustained file system damage. Don't forget to run it As Administrator.


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## Laudesan

Thank you for the information about running GetDataBack.

The drive is only 4 months old, and if about 25% full.

I am trying not to panic...


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## Laudesan

Well according to File Scavenger there are no files to be found.  I just do not believe this..

I am going to try your program now.


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## Cairnsboy

I have the same problem with my drive. I am just wondering what these 2 pins r for? Would it be a reset jumper?


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## Laudesan

I still haven't found a solution, other than to take it to a specialised technician, which I am going to do this month at the cost of over 1000.00


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## spunk.funk

I have had great luck with Get Data Back NTFS as suggested by *Jay*. Download the Trail version, let it scan your drive, it will tell you what if any files it can recover.Then you decide if it is worth paying for it to actually restore your files. You will need another drive of the same size of the files you are trying to recover to restore too.


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## alphaai

Hey,

I may have a partial solution but I don't know if it will work for everyone.
I had about 127gb left on my 1tb drive and one day, for some reason, it wouldn't allow me to view the contents of my drive. It showed up in Computer
and everytime I clicked on it, my computer would just freeze or slow down my PC. It even slowed down my internet browsing. Something was wrong. My drive would flash.

I tried HDD regenerator but it would say "master boot missing". I tried numerous programs and read numerous posts but nothing worked. Could it be that you may have just too much stuff on there and it struggling to cope? That what I think may be the issue.

So I can now view my folders and files. This is what I did:

1. Run "Foldersizes Professional" and make sure that your drive shows up in the list. If it doesn't, then wait for it to show up
2. Right click on the drive (the menu may takes ages to show up) and select scan for largest files. 
Wait for it to show up. May take a while. 
Now believe it or not but my drive was scanning folders and files. It was give you feedback however it was taking a very long time. Too long. 
It would even freeze a few times too.
If you see that folders and files are being scanned then it means you drive still works but for some reason it is chugging slowly. 

3. When it has finished scanning, delete the big files by right clicking and selecting delete file (again menu may take ages to show) that were hogging your drive.
4. Remember: If it is scanning slowly, then it is still working. It will even pause. Make sure you delete the files out of your recycle bin too.

Ok, so now that you have done that. Your now up to me. 
I have not managed to get my drive working properly yet because this is my first partial solution but to know it does delete and scan folders and access files means that it is an improvement.

My next move is possible to defrag. 
Let me know how you go.

Hope that works for ya.

Ben


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## alphaai

An update:

I have now managed to reduce my HDD free space to 152gb instead of 127gb that I had previously.


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## alphaai

An Update:
I thought I would do a Disk Cleanup. Since clicking on "Disk Cleanup" it took possibly anywhere around 5 - 8 mins to show up the Disk Clean Up Window.
That was a waste of time because there was nothing to cleanup.

I am now on Defragmenting. I have just completed 100% of analyzing and now it is defragmenting and it is still on 0% defragmented. Oh well.

We play the waiting game. 

Ben


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## alphaai

An Update: 

Just used the windows 7 defrag. Since it doesnt provide you any real-time feedback, I am not using it. As far I was concerned, it remained on 0% defrag and that didnt tell me what was really happening.

I am instead using another defrag that shows you the overall progress, and how many files have been analyzed and defrag. Download a demo of Auslogics disk defrag. That shows real time defrag. You need to know your drive is still chugging along and without no real-time feedback, how would u know that its still working or has died on you completely?

This is my first time using auslogics disk defrag so I don't know what to say about it except that it is providing me real time feedback which Windows 7 Defrag did not do for me.

Ben


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## jockwilson

I had the exact same problem, with my Elements hard drive not being recognised by my computer.
I changed the power supply lead from a 12v one I had been using previously, to the original lead supplied with the drive.
Whoopee! all works fine now.


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## darrentownley24

The problem is not with the Hard Drive. The problem is with the electronics in the enclosure. I had a similar problem. My hard drive crashed. I took it out of the enclosure and connected it directly to my PC. It was dead. I replaced the hard drive with a good working hard drive and my PC would not read it. It did show up in disk management and it was not initiated. When I tried to initiate it I got a message stating that it was write protected. I then took the good hard drive out of the case and connected it directly to my PC (internally) and it worked fine. I tried this with several hard drives and got the same results. My conclusion is that the electronics in the WD enclosure has a problem or only works with a certain type of hard drive. I will get a different enclosure.


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## mslocke15

One way i was able to access the drive(not sure if it works every time) was to open device manager and uninstall the drive in question. Then scan for hardware changes and let it install again. I had to do this twice in order to see both partitions the drive contained.

Hope this helps...


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## nani95

ronmetz said:


> hi wintaer,
> 
> i just wanna let you know that i forwarded (your question, our question about wd elements 1023) to WD website. i hope we get a prompt response


hi ronmetz,
since you did forward the question to WD website, what was the response may i ask?
i have the exact same problem and have no clue how to go about.
thanks. 
do reply asap please.


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## koala

Hi nani95, welcome to TSF

This is a 2011 thread, and the original poster has not returned, so you're unlikely to get a reply from them. If you still need help, please start a new thread giving full details about your problem.


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