[pedtool101]

I have a Western Digital external drive that just won,t work on any of my laptops and all my Flac files are on it. Is there a cheep solution to go somewhere to have them retrieved and moved to my working computer? Please help!

 

[65535]

If the drive is truly damaged data recovery runs from about $500-5,000 dollars. If it's a user error maybe not so much.

 

[pedtool101]

when i plug it in it shows up but just makes funny noises and I can't access the files! should I try to run a disc check with fixing errors?

 

[65535]

Noises = broken. Consider it lost unless it's worth a couple grand to you, even then chances are you won't get anything.

 

[tk3]

It's probably busted.
Does it happen to be one of those My Passport//My Book drives? Some of those had some proprietary X to USB connector on the inside that are prone to self-destruction without any outside help.
I know, because I used to have one that self-destructed and after Googling for awhile I found out it was a common and known issue.
Because of that connector you can't even take it out of the encasing and connect it through SATA to your PC, and the QC on them was negligent to the point it is almost criminal.
 
You can open it up and see if if it has a normal SATA connector or one of the proprietary ones, if it's the latter you're most likely out of luck.
Their internal HDDs are generally qualitatively decent, but because they knowingly keep products like this with fundamental design flaws on the market (and also charge extortion level fees if you contact their CS for data recovery), WD is firmly in the boycott-for-life list for me.
 
See http://datacent.com/datarecovery/hdd/western_digital/My+Passport+Essential for more information, or google "western digital external drive proprietary connector".

 

[pedtool101]

Damn yes it is a My Book drive, and it's funny I never really even used it that long, what a shame that i sold all my CD's after I ripped them all to Flac with DBpoweramp and accurate rip :'(

 

[65535]

Even if you could get to it, a drive making noise indicates there is serious damage to it. Physical damage not electrical.

 

[pedtool101]

Thanks very much, I'm not gonna spend all that money to retrieve my files, I'll just keep re-ripping them as best I can!

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Damn yes it is a My Book drive, and it's funny I never really even used it that long, what a shame that i sold all my CD's after I ripped them all to Flac with DBpoweramp and accurate rip :'(

 
I still have all my physical copies on my shelf, and but I have my favorites in my laptop and a back up WD Elements, plus all my discs archived in FLAC in a WD MyBook. Always keep a back up copy somewhere - I got the drives primarily for photos but what the heck, they can spare around 100gb (I have about 60gb in audio and still growing).

 

[adupree]

If its making a noise the write arm is probably on a platter, meaning its damaged physically. The best advice I can give is to get a better drive. Something like a G-Tech, Glyph, or Lacie. I run G-Tech only and have never had an issue with them. The only drive I that has ever failed was a Seagate.

 

[fleshx]

I have found that some USB cables will cause some WD Passport drives to click and act like they are damaged...a small ray of hope...

 

[adupree]

  I have found that some USB cables will cause some WD Passport drives to click and act like they are damaged...a small ray of hope...

How would a cable cause this?

 

[65535]

It's possible if you have damaged USB cables which don't allow enough power for the drive to spin up.
 
However if you're abusing a USB cable to the point of failure I imagine the drive was killed too.

 

[adupree]

Yes if a drive doesn't get enough power it won't spin up, but I don't think it would make it click or any other noises.

 

[65535]

I've had a drive with power issues before it would spin up partially then make terrible clicking as the arm smacked back to the home position. I unplugged that thing fast.