I recently had a friend from out of town staying at my house. When I went to work he decided he was going to take all my music off of my external 2 TB My Book Essential which was connected to my PC which is running Vista and put it on his MAC. He took a few files, but couldn’t get them to transfer onto his new 2 TB My Book Essential after he put the files on his desktop. Why he was transferring files this way is beyond me and believe me I am not happy. He decided to install WD Smartware to get his new hard drive working but I think he set it up for my hard drive instead on accident if that is possible. When I got home and tried to connect the hard drive back to my PC it had an unlock disk displayed instead of the hard drive, but every time I would click on the icon it would say the drive isn’t locked. We hooked the hard drive back up to the Mac and ran the same thing he ran to lock to drive to unlock it. Now nothing shows up in My Computer. I can see the drive in Disk Management and 3 partitions are listed 200MB Healthy(EFI System Partitioin), 1862GB Healthy(Primary Partition), and 128MB Unallocated. I have tried assigning a drive letter to the 1862GB partittion, but the only thing Windows will allow me to click on is Delete Partition.I initially did not have smartware installed on my computer. When I installed it, it found the drive and gave the message “no writable partition found”. I tried upgrading the software and had a weird error and it appears it has stopped working as it is not currently up. A friend I talked to from work thought that the disk might be write protected, but had nothing to offer besides this diagnosis. I have tried searching for solutions and have found none and just ended up confused. Is there any way to get my data back or do I have to delete this partition and reformat it for my drive to work again? I have a lot of important stuff on this hard drive and need it to be saved if at all possible. Thank you for your help.
I apologize for double posting, but I thought that I should add that I tried the steps in the FAQ above with no luck. I have had the hard drive for a few months and have had no problems with it until now. I switched power cables and data cables with my friend who had just purchased a brand new My Book. When my hard drive is connected to my friend’s Mac it displays the same message in Smartware, “No writable partition found” although it does give more options than when connected to my PC. On my PC I am unable to click on anything in Smartware, settings is grayed out. Like I said in the previous post I have been experiencing problems with Smartware. On the Mac I am able to register and add a password which is what my friend said he did to cause this problem. I’m not sure I fully believe him, but he said all he did was register and give it a password in Smartware. He says he did not click on anything to format the drive. I have no way of knowing for sure that he is being honest or that he would even know if he did format the drive given the way he was trying to transfer files. Unfortunately he is leaving tonight and taking his Mac with him. I do not have a Mac, but could possibly convice a coworker to bring one in to work if you think it would be necessary to fix my problem. I have been unable to fix the problem with Smartware on my PC, could this possibly be the problem? Any advice you can give to recover my hard drive is greatly appreciated.
There are a few things to try. One is TestDisk http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk The other is get some Linux app that runs from CD like http://www.ubcd4win.com/index.htm The other is install the Smartware on youra I’d do that as a last resort. Your friend should have known Mac and Windows use different formats and I don’t know much at all about Macs.
Joe
Thank you for your response. This has been a long process. I ran Test Disk and it was able to find the right amount of data and move it to another hard drive I have. The problem is that it only found 289 files and most are in a weird swf or gpg format. I have pasted the readout below. My question now is did I do something wrong in Test Disk to output the wrong format. I’m not a computer expert and found the DOS interface a little confusing. Did Test Disk output the right files and now I can convert them to be readable? Or, does this mean that my files are corrupt and I should cut my losses. This is the only solution that you recommended that I have had the opportunity to do yet. I thought that I would ask your advice after this since it is an incredibly wrong process to carry out any of these solutions. It took me over 30 hours for the Test Disk scan to work and another 24 to move the found data to another hard drive. I have no problem waiting for these processes to work if there is a chance to recover my data though. Yes, I agree with you that my friend should have known better, I am not happy about this. He knows nothing about computers and bought a Mac because it’s trendy, I think he was transferring files like this because he was anxious to use his new Mac any way possible. They should have warnings on those things to prevent people like him from messing things up. When I was searching for solutions I was surprised that I couldn’t find much information, it seems like this would happen more often. Anyway, thanks again for your help I really appreciate it.
PhotoRec 6.11.3, Data Recovery Utility, May 2009
Christophe GRENIER grenier@cgsecurity.org
http://www.cgsecurity.org
Disk /dev/sdb - 2000 GB / 1862 GiB (RO) - WD My Book 1130
Partition Start End Size in sectors
2 P Mac HFS 409640 3906701271 3906291632 [My Book]
289 files saved in /cygdrive/f/Shows/recup_dir directory.
Recovery completed.
swf: 169 recovered
gpg: 95 recovered
mp3: 5 recovered
txt: 3 recovered
pst: 2 recovered
arj: 2 recovered
psd: 2 recovered
pyc: 2 recovered
max: 2 recovered
flac: 1 recovered
others: 6 recovered
[Quit]
Did you try to open the files you already recovered? The swf should be flash files do they open with a media player?The gpg may have to do with this http://gnupg.org/ or something else. Did you try to recover the original partition? There is a tutorial for that at Test Disk. The real frustration is since he’s so computer illiterate that there is no way to know what he actually did. I would try to recover the partition structure. You might also try accessing with a Linux CD it runs from CD it does’t actually install and see what you can find. I posted a link before there are also plenty of Linux live apps like Ubuntu that should work.
Joe
Thanks for your help. I agree, it is very frustrating trying to solve a problem with limited information. I tried Test Disk again running it like in the tutorial and I got the same results. I was going to try UBCD but it doesn’t work for Vista. I am also weary of installing another operating system such as Ubuntu because I don’t want to mess something up and lose more data. I didn’t find the Ubuntu website to be that clear though. It just telling me how easy it was, it didn’t really say anything about it. Should I try Ubuntu? Will it effect my Vista? A similar program to UBCD would probably be the best if you know of one that works on Vista. Thanks again.
I have a 500 WD External HD connected to my Desktop running on Windows XP. I connected it to my Mini10-Windows 7. It messed up my Mini10 autoplay dialogue box. In trying to fix the dialogue box somehow my 500 malfunctioned and was not longer recognizable on Windows 7. I got so worried and hoping and praying that it was only a Windows 7 problem, incompatible driver. True enough when I connected it back to my PC-Windows XP there was no problem at all. My 500 was still readable and all the data are in tact. I don’t know whether or not this is of help. You can try plugging your WD to a PC running on Windows XP and see if it will read your WD. I hope you find a solution to your problem.
You wouldn’t have to install Ubuntu they have a live CD version that runs from the CD.
Joe
I ran Ubuntu live and formatted the disk to NTFS or so I thought. The drive now is not recognized at all. I can’t see it in Ubuntu or Windows. It doesn’t even show up in Disk Management and WD Formatter doesn’t can’t find the drive either. Is there anything I can do? Thanks.
I called WD and found out that there is pretty much nothing that can be done. Luckily the drive is still under warranty so I can get a replacement. It’s a small consilation, I lost all my data but at least I’m not out $100 too. If you have this problem there is pretty much nothing you can do. Be very careful when reformatting the drive. I’m not sure if going into Linux to get around Windows to reformat the drive did something to make it not recognized at all. All I can say from this experience is, it is easy to mess up so be careful. Also do not plug any hard drive into a Mac ever, but if you are reading this it is probably too late. I looked at several sites and could not find any solution to whatever the Mac did. It has really given me a negative view of Mac products. Thank you to the people on this site for all your help. I really appreciate it. I know it was difficult to diagnose with the limited information. Had my friend been able to explain what he did, maybe we could have found a solution. Thanks again.
I am having trouble with my 1T MB Home Edition (it is either USB or firewire). It stopped working a couple of days ago and now my computer recognizes as a different drive name and says that it needs to be formatted. I have a lot of data on it and don’t want to lose it - what are my options? Thanks.
It sounds like something got corrupt. Try TestDisk http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk it may fix the partition structure.
Joe
Hi Joe_S,
I have been working on it since I received your message. It has found lots of files and gradually I am copying them. Question: Do I have to copy all of the miscellaneous .tmp files?? Thanks for your help and I will let you know when it is finished. I am keeping my fingers crossed that this works.
Hi Joe,
Thanks so much for your help!!! I was able to recover about 80% of my data. Now my computer recognizes the drive but only as a 1gb instead of 1t. What should my next step be??
If you have all of the data you can get saved on another drive it would probably be best to format this one and start out clean http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=3865
Joe
Hi Joe, Thanks for the quick response. I’ll let you know how it turns out.
Hi Joe, I worked and I now have a 1T drive back!!!
Thanks soooo much for you help!! If you were close by I’d treat you to lunch!! Thanks again!
Glad it worked it’s nice when it’s simple fix.
Joe
Hi Joe,
I see how you helped the other person and I’ve followed the same directions but after I ran the testdisk these are the results. See picture. What should I do next? Thanks.
The pic hasn’t been released yet.
Joe
