Older Western Digital Harddrive Issues.

I have an older Western Digital USB external hard drive (Model WD1200b008) from probably 2003 0r '04. I have a bunch of important data backed up on this drive and it is misbehaving. It has two lights on it... green and red... green means it's being read fine... red means your screwed. I'm getting red. From what I've researched, usually these either fail or don't, I'm hoping the functioning red light means it's NOT burnt out. I feel like this is somewhere in the middle and am hoping there's something I can do. Tried unplugging, plugging, changing cables, manually loading the drivers. etc.

Anyone have any other ideas?

thnx in adv.

 

Hi Particle man and welcome to Majorgeeks forums .

Split the enclosure and mount the drive directly into another PC would be my first suggestion with a drive of this age as it's unlikely to be under warranty now. Just hope that it's the enclosure controller that's playing up.

 

Western digital produce a specific version of their diagnostic and repair tool for USB drives.

http://support.wdc.com/

Look for Data Lifeguard, or input your particular model.

 

Hey guys...

Thanks for the lightning quick responses. Damn.
So Studio T ... I tried the data lifeguard but my PC isnt even acknowledging that the external is plugged in in the first place. It seems that in order for WinDLG to work there is no way to do a search or force acknowledge (trm?) the presence of the external.

SatroW ... am I correct in assuming that the data and power cables the external use are probably stock PC cables.. I.E. I should be able to plug it into a secondary hard drive cord.

thanks again for the response guys.

I'd throw this drive out the window right now if I could but the contents are pretty important to me.

s

 

Yes, though I'm unsure whether it would be a SATA or IDE - I'd guess the latter.