External HD extremely slow, makes poor contact.

My 1 TB Western Digital external hard drive where basically everything is backed up, became extremely slow and contact to the desktop and laptop with the USB cable is also not adequate at all.I cannot transfer files at this stage from the HD to the desktop/laptop.

I physically opened the drive and saw that it looks like an internal hard drive. Could I try to use it as one? Or at least to get the data off?

http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/ii62/avz10/2011_10_02_0052.jpg

http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/ii62/avz10/2011_10_02_0051.jpg

http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/ii62/avz10/2011_10_02_0050.jpg

I realise that this might be a hardware failure, which also poses the question -where to back up too??

I will try to cionnect it directly inside the box and see what happens.

The dreaded and I have 2 cases:
My own data on this external and my daughter who did a project on a memory stick and now all the PCs that she has tried, wants to format the memory stick, which will obviously delete everything.

So the bottom line

1. Where is it safe to store??
2. Is there any way in which one can try to obtain the data?

Any advice please?

 

If that is a My Book which it looks like it is not good news. It apparently employs hardware encryption so unless it goes through the board with the mini-usb you can't retrieve your data. So far, it seems like your mini-usb connector is still making contact which is better than most people with similar problems but be very careful because once it breaks all hope is lost.

I think your best bet is to CAREFULLY find and angle of the cord/connector that makes good enough contact to get your data off the drive. I know this is not much help but I seem to remember some threads where people were complaining of the loose connection and having to hold things at a certain angle to make good contact, so it may be possible. Again, you want to be careful because it is very easy to break the usb connector off the board entirely.

Take a look at some threads on the WDC ommunity board for some idea of the problem:

Google: http://www.google.com/search?client...gc.r_pw.&fp=d9f6fbf4cb7858fd&biw=1920&bih=914

WDC community: http://community.wdc.com/t5/External-Drives-for-Mac/Broken-USB-connector/td-p/148262
http://community.wdc.com/t5/My-Book-for-PC/My-Book-1TB-Essential-Broken-USB-Port/td-p/126874/page/2
http://community.wdc.com/t5/My-Book-for-PC/My-Book-1TB-Essential-Broken-USB-Port/td-p/126874/page/2

 

Currently no contact!

Thank yo for you useful quota, either through the USB or fitted internally- the desktop does not recognize the hard drive.

What I have read and tried are the following:

- could not use it as HD not recognised.

Not shown

Well, none work.

1. I am now prepared to clean the HD when any computer recognizes it and use it as a third internal HD.
2. I know how to connect it internally, but not sure how to set-up everything up.

Any help with this?

Desktop specs:
Windows 7 Professional SP1 64 bit; MS Office Professional Plus 2010; 2.80 GHz Intel Core i5-2300; Multi-core (4); HDx2- 160GB; 500GB.Laptop: Windows 7 Professional SP1 64 bit; MS Office Professional Plus 2010;
HP Probook Intel Core i3 CPU M370@2.40 GHz, 3 GB RAM; 300 GB HD.
Desktop: Windows 7 Professional SP1 64 bit; MS Office Professional Plus 2010; 2.80 GHz Intel Core i5-2300; Multi-core (4); HDx2- 160GB; 500GB.
First a couple comments about your post...

 

I'm sorry you couldn't retrieve your data.
I believe if you hook it up internally it should show in BIOS and disk management. I'd say go ahead and make the internal connections and see if the drive is seen. Then if you are resolved to the loss of data it should just be a matter of formatting it in Disk Management which should see the drive as unallocated.

Let us know how it looks in disk management after installing it internally. Start then type in disk management in the Search box.

Actually, thinking about it I might use WD's Align tool to do a low-level format on the HD once it is seen by your PC. Just to be sure that it is completely clean before formatting to NTFS in disk management.