Help urgently needed

I have a WD Passport 160GB External Hard Drive that has apparently failed and could not be seen by XP. Using WD Diagnostics I expanded the boot partition in order to have the drive recognized, but it is recognized as not formatted. I have approximately 6GB of files I desperately need to recover from that drive. I have purchased two software packages that did not help as hoped. I am an unemployed single parent with 3 teenage daughters and could not afford the more than $100 I have already spent. Where can I get software or help to recover these desperately needed files?

Please contact me at or call me at (removed phone number) with any help you may be able to offer.

Thanks

 

Hi and welcome to MG .. Firstly I would go into your CMOS/BIOS settings (you get there by continually tapping the 'Delete' button when starting the computer. Have a look in Intergrated Periphrials and see if your USB reference is set to 1.2 volts use the arrow key to bring it down to 1.1 volt then hit the enter key. You use this CMOS page by using the arrow keys and the Enter key and escape keys. when you have found and adjusted come out of that page by using the Escape key, until you return to the very first page you were on. Using the arrow key highlight the Save & Exit, press enter and it will reboot and let us know if that fixes your problem. Also could you let us know what Specifications/Operating System your computer has.

 

First, thank you for your suggestions.
1) I tried going into my CMOS/BIOS hitting del, butI can only get into it with F1; 2) I have an HP Presario with Intel Pentium 4 CPU 253GHz & 504mb RAM; 3) There are no options for Peripherals in this BIOS; 4) I have another PC which is a Gateway with Intel Pentium III & 512mb RAM; 5) F1 enters BIOS with this PC as well and it does have Peripheral Configuration, but only has the option to enable or disable Legacy support for keyboards using Universal Serial Bus.

Also, talking with others who wanted to charge me $400 to recover my files & folders, they said that they would take the drive out of the case and connect it to IDE to accomplish the task at hand. I am concerned with invalidationg my warranty with WD should this take place.

With this additional information, do you have any other suggestions>

 

Hi again ,, are you connecting the USB straight into the Motherboard or are you using a connection at the front. Although I suggested Intergrated Periphrials and that was of no assistance did you look elsewhere in the CMOS Page?? As far as $400 you have been quoted I would consider buying some software which would be a lot cheaper as a last resort. I have used this one
http://www.easeus.com/ which is simple to use and will get into your hard Drive and retrieve/restore, but it requires two hard Drives to complete the action. It cannot retrieve and restore to the ssame Hard Drive.

 

Something else you could try is to go into Disk Management via Control Panel/Admin Tools/Computer Management/Storage/Disk Management... when the window comes up and if you see your Hard Drive there , Right Click on the big area and choose Explore. If this is succesful you can now save your lost files and when done you can then format the drive doing the same right click.:major

 

Toke: Thanks for all of your help so far. I have tried 'explore', but only receive the message that the disk is not formatted. I have downloaded several software pkgs including Easeus, which show not only files I don't believe to exist, but fail to show files and folders I know to exist. This leads me to believe that at least some of these free download scans are only smoke & mirrors to lure you into purchasing their software. I previously purchased Avanquest Disk Utilities Professional and Iolo Search & Recover, though neither could recover the partition or files & folders. Since your earlier response re: Easeus I have sent an email to suppport@easeus.com, downloaded their scan and I am again scanning to see what files & folders they show. One big problem that I have is that I have no credit card and, therefore, am unable to purchase anything online. I am trying desperately to find where I can purchase such software locally in Denver, CO

 

Hi again.. When using The 'Easeus' prog just Recover the Whole Disk thats if you have enough space on the other drive .. When completed scour through and you will find what you are looking for and a lot more. I have tried it myself on a drive that was totally unreachable/unrecognised through windows and it recovered everything and as I said a lot lot more.