Top methods to recover lost data from WD external hard drive

Working with big amounts of information? You know the desperate moment when you realize that you need something that you deleted a long time ago. This is the topic of this article : Recycle bin data recovery. 1st lets start with some general data recovery tips, valid for all type of data devices, PC’s, Mac’s, phones.

Have a data recovery program ready for use. When your hard drive goes bad and you lose valuable files and documents, it’s time to turn on your favorite data recovery software solution and recover everything back from the bad hard drive. We highly recommended Disk Drill for Windows and Mac OS X. The main advantages of Disk Drill are its ease of use, support for more than 200 file formats and all common storage devices, including iOS and Android smartphone and tablets.

The first step is to remove the hard drive from the device if possible, or otherwise stop using it. Any actions, even installing a recovery app, risks overwriting the files you need. The good news is that when you delete a file on a drive, all that data doesn’t immediately go away. The computer mostly erases the information that points the computer to that chunk of data, which will remain until it gets written over. This works differently depending on whether you have a magnetic spinning disk drive or a solid-state drive (SSD), which you’ll find on most modern computers. But either way, recovery is possible.

So, if your hard drive fails, you’ll need to take care to stop working on it immediately. Even if you’re not directly accessing the data on it, your computer is probably writing something to it thereby risking your shot at data recovery. Once the data is overwritten, there’s no any chance of getting it back. So shutdown the computer that is connected to the hard drive and unplug it.

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.

Before you bring out the heavy guns, make sure that it’s not a connectivity problem. First, swap USB cables and ports to rule them out. Still no dice? Now, check if it’s a problem with the external drive’s enclosure itself. Eject the external USB drive from your computer, and if it’s powered by an adapter, unplug it from the wall outlet. It’s highly recommended that you ground yourself with an anti-static wristband before attempting this to avoid injuring yourself or damaging your drive further. Next, crack its case open then check the physical cables that connect the hard drive to your USB output. Note: The connections can either be IDE (wider connectors) or SATA (small connectors). Check for any loose cables and make sure that they’re firmly connected.

Sometimes, when we go to look for information in some of our hard drives and we do not find it, we believe that we erase it and we cannot recover it. In most cases, if you delete information from a device, it is not possible to recover it without the proper tools. The good thing is that we know that tool and we can help you, so we show you how to recover deleted files which were deleted long time ago – even you deleted them 2 or 4 years ago. See more details at How to recover deleted files which were deleted long time ago?.