external hard drive not recognized

tried mini tool, it lists the drive, but when I try to do anything I get a message that says 'no disk can be found'.

Tried TestDisk to rebuild MBR code.

Same issue FreeBooter

when I run TestDisk the external drive is not listed as a drive to repair.
To confirm that everything is same as before I looked at the disk in Device Manager - it is working properly, and in Disk Manager it's status is the same - Unknown, not ititialized

Sorry to say your external HDD needs to be formatted you have tried everything. There is nothing left for me to do, honestly.

Download install and run Getdataback Simple with only your faulty external drive connected. . Please read all the documentation on how to use it.

https://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm

It is a data recovery program. As soon as it runs it will start searching for your drives and show you the drives found lets hope one of the drives is your external drive.

If it shows your external drive, click on it and it will scan and show all your files.

thank your for all your help today FreeBooter
Once again we have the same problem. When I run 'runtime' the only disk listed is my main internal drive, it does not detect the external drive.
Is it because Windows does not recognize the disk and therefore has not assigned it a drive letter?

vallero said:

thank your for all your help today FreeBooter
Once again we have the same problem. When I run 'runtime' the only disk listed is my main internal drive, it does not detect the external drive.
Is it because Windows does not recognize the disk and therefore has not assigned it a drive letter?

The external HDD partition is not detected because partition table contain in MBR code is damage.

Btw you are very welcome!

This is unusual that 2 drives at the same time would have the same problem.
1) Use a camera or smart phone camera > boot to the bios > view the drives detected by the bios > post an image into the thread directly. If there are problems posting and image use one drive or drop box share links.

Take Screenshot in Windows 10 General Tips Tutorials
Share OneDrive files and folders - Office Support

Open each:
2) device manger > click view > show hidden devices > expand disk drives > post an image into the thead
3) file explorer > this PC > post an image into the thread
4) disk management > widen each the status and volume columns so that when viewing the rows all characters are in full view and nothing is cut off.
Disk Management - How to Post a Screenshot of General Tips Tutorials

5) Attach the external hard drives to another computer and report whether another computer can detect the drives.

Hello zbook
#1) I have tested the external drives in three different computers, win10 pro, Win10, and XP. The results are identical. When I plug in the external hard drive windows signals a new device with an audio signal and the light comes on on the external drive. The results on all three pc's is identical in disk manager, file explorer and device manager.
#2) I have tried all solutions presented to me by FreeBooter, from the simplest solution of uninstalling the external drive in device manager and rebooting windows, to using the various third party software that was suggested, obviously with out success.
#3) The attached screen shots will only show one of the drives attached because I don't have enough free USB ports to attach two drives and I didn't think it would have been a good idea to use a hub.
#4) one strange thing about one of the drives is that now device manager lists it as a Toshiba drive although it is a Western Digital.
#5) Sorry but I have no way of getting a photo of BIOS

I look forward to reading your comments

vallero said:

hello FreeBooter
I did the extended test here are the results:
capacity 0.00 GB
SMART status - not available
test result PASS

That is an indication that the SATA to USB bridge inside the enclosure has failed. Unfortunately that electronics is soldered directly to the drive. So you cannot seperate the HDD to try it out with a direct connection to a SATA port on a desktop motherboard. Even if you could, the data in that Passport is hardware encrypted by the enclosure electronics and you will recover only the encrypted data which will be useless. Your only recourse is Professional data recovery. If the private agencies refuse to do it because of these complications and they are not equipped to deal with it, then only the WD Data recovery Partners can do it ( they have the electronics and the associated decrypt key) but will charge many pounds of your flesh. https://support.wdc.com/warranty/dat...y.aspx?lang=en

thanks jumanji
so you are saying that it is an un-repairable component failure. Strange that both hard drives did that simultaneously.
I don't actually care about the data on the drives, if I could format them I would be satisfied. However I suppose with component damage that you described that is impossible as well.