Windows 10: External Hard Drive with clicking sound

A relative with toddlers just gave me his "Western Digital Passport Ultimate" external HDD that he saves all his family videos on , that was tossed by one of his tods to the ground while playing a video .

Yes its a crises , and for the first time in my life I meet a drive that acts like that .

In the early few times I plugged it , it was detected by "Device Manager" , but never showed in explorer , but in "Windows Management Console" it showed the drive with (Bad Media) black bar with a suggestion to re-initialize , there were no clicking sound up to this point .

All recovery programs wouldn't even detect there was a hard drive installed of which I recall "Easeus" , "Recoverit" and "Diskgenius" .

The only program that sensed there was a drive installed was "Minitool Partition Wizard Pro" , that still showed (Bad Media) bar with no options enabled what so ever to deal with it .

The final thing I tried was installing "Western Digital Diagnostic" tool that had 2 tests and an erase option and report option , all tests were rendered successful that the device is detectable and working fine however it detects its size as 0 capacity .

This was when the device started clicking , and now "Management Console" stopped detecting (Bad Media) bar and would now show no space at all suggesting "Western Digital Diagnostic" did some merciful kill on which or something , where now even "Minitool Partition Wizard Pro" stopped detecting it .

I managed to acquire a drive with same specs and switched boards , surprisingly the clicking sound increased in intervals but with same symptoms : only "Device Manager" sees it with no media shown in "Management Console" and no detection by any recovery tool .

On the other hand on installing the board of the drive in question on the working drive acquired , it was not detected at all by "Device Manager" surprisingly .

On a side notice the relative stated that professional media recovery is out of question since it may require shipping to another country that has those services , paying a fortune , then the probability of bad handling on shipping back or being lost .

So any further suggestions other then giving it a proper burial ?

P.S

1 - I had few mixed up theories from "Youtubes" that "Ultimate series of WD" drive had an encryption chip so the board can never be replaced since this chip becomes the media pass key .

2 - That the no clicking sound initially was due to heads being stuck , then they finally got loose and hence the sounds started being heard , so probably the "Western Digital Diagnostic" just helped resetting them .

:)

 

External Hard Drive

Hi John,

We suggest that you try the troubleshooting steps below:

• Open your External Hard Drive file in File Explorer.
• Type the name of the file you want to search on the search box and click Enter.

The file will show up in Search Results and you will be able to move it to the correct folder.

Let us know if you need further help.

 

Seagate External Hard Drive

Hi Barbara,

Hardware failure or corruption within your system files are some of the possible reasons why you are experiencing an issue with accessing your external hard drive. For us to provide an accurate solution, we would need you to answer the following questions:

• Which build, version and edition of Windows 10?
• Are you experiencing the same issue when you are trying to access the external hard drive using another PC?
• What troubleshooting steps have you done so far?

In the meantime, we suggest running the automated troubleshooter for hardware. Follow these steps to do so:

• Open the Control Panel.
• Using the search box at the upper right corner of the window, type troubleshooting.
  
• From the search results, click on Troubleshooting.
• Click on Hardware and Sound and then choose Hardware and Devices.
• Once done, restart your computer and then check if the same issue persists.

We are looking forward to your response.

 

unrecognised external hard drive on Windows 10

Since you already reinstalled the drivers of the External Hard Drive, let's run the
Hardware and Devices troubleshooter as it can resolve your concern. You can do that by following these steps:

• 
  Press the Start button.
  
• 
  Type and select Troubleshooting.
  
• 
  Click on View all on the left panel.
  
• 
  Select and run the Hardware and Devices troubleshooter.
  

If the Hardware and Devices troubleshooter doesn’t resolve your concern, we suggest that you change the letter of the External Hard Drive. You can do that by following these steps:

• 
  Press the Start button.
  
• 
  Type and select Control panel.
  
• 
  Select System and Security.
  
• 
  Select Administrative Tools, and a new window will appear.
  
• 
  Double-click Computer Management, and a new window will appear.
  
• 
  Select Disk Management that is located under
  Storage in the left pane.
  
• 
  Right click on the External Hard Drive that is not showing on the File Explorer.
  
• 
  Select Change letter and network path, and a new window will appear.
  
• 
  Select Change, and choose the letter that you want for the External Hard Drive.
  

After changing the letter of the External Hard Drive, we suggest that you reboot your laptop for the changes to take effect.



Let us know how it goes.



Regards.