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WD External USB HD removed without ejecting. HD NO ACCESS

Posted: 06 Jul 2015, 21:10
by EdTomchin
I have a WD 1TB My Passport External USB HD which is nearly full. I unplugged the USB without first "ejecting" the device. Now I get a "WD Hardware Error USB Device" when trying to access the data on the HD.

I am running Windows 7 SP1 64bit on a PC. When I used Computer Management I get an error message saying "Disk 2 Unknown, Not initialized." When I tried to initialize the HD I recieved another error message saying "The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error."

I called WD and even though the HD was out of warrranty, they listened to my problem and told me the only way I could recover the 400+ movies on this HD was to use data recovery software. I checked with TechSupportAlert, a dependable newsletter I receive and looked for some good data recovery software. You were recommended. I'd like to know if your software can deal with this issue. I don't care about the HD itself. I can get another one. But the movies were ripped from DVDs I no longer have and I'd like to recover the data. I hope you can help me.

Thank you.

Ed Tomchin

Re: WD External USB HD removed without ejecting. HD NO ACCE

Posted: 07 Jul 2015, 09:46
by Fiona
Since W2k, didks must be initialized that windows can work with.
It means, as long as your disk is not initialized you'll have no partition table.
Also I/O device error often points to a defective disk?
As long as your disk management console displays the disk size correctly you can run testdisk / Analyse and Quick Search to have a try to find your partition by the boot sector of your previous partition.
I assume your file system has been NTFS?
If nothing would be found, you can run Deeper Search also to have a try to find your partition by the backup of the boot sector which is located at the end of your lost partition.
If a partition would be found, you can select it and press p to have a try to list your files.
When your files are listed, you can use testdisk to copy your data to another healthy disk or partition.