Top methods to recover lost data from WD external hard drive

Working with big amounts of information? You know the panic moment when you realize that you need some information that you deleted a long time ago. This is the subject of this article : Western Digital hard drive data recovery. 1st lets start with some general data recovery tips, valid for all type of data devices, PC’s, Mac’s, phones.

Use cloud storage. For most regular users, cloud storage services represent the most reliable way how to protect themselves against data loss. Providers of these services are commonly located on the other side of the planet, and they use sophisticated backup systems at their storage facilities, resulting in multiple degrees of redundancy. Best of all, services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive have free plans with generous storage limits, which are more than enough for text documents.

Physical appearance can also be a tell-tale sign of hard drive failure. However, dust and other airborne pollutants can easily damage your drive’s surface given its incredible sensitivity, so avoid opening the drive and exposing the inside components to the outside elements. Carefully remove your computer’s hard drive and inspect it for obvious signs of damage such as bent pins and or broken pieces. It’s unlikely your hard drive suffered much in the way of physical damage while housed in your computer, but it warrants a look either way.

So what should you immediately do if you find yourself in such a situation one day? While screaming might sound justified, there are a few things you can try out before thinking of running to a hard drive service center. And what are those few things? Well, you’ll have to read on to find out. Starting with the basics – there are 2 ways a hard drive can be damaged. Yes, this is required. You need to understand what kind of damage has struck your hard drive in order to know how to deal with it.

There are two main causes of failure here, either a TVS diode (fuse) has shorted due to overvoltage, or a vital component on the PCB has failed. Hard drive PCBs often have two TVS diodes which act as fuses to protect your drive in the event of a power spike. There will most likely be two of these: one for the 5v and one for the 12v rail. If you accidentally plugged in the wrong power adapter to your external drive, or you experienced a power surge, a TVS diode might have sacrificed itself. If the shorted TVS diode is the only casualty and the rest of the PCB components are OK, then simply removing the shorted diode is enough to bring the drive back to life.

Recovery services are also the only viable option if the machine was exposed to water, or if it was dropped and it’s likely some part of the drive was broken. If you hear loud clicking noises, or the machine was immersed in liquid, then the best route is to turn it off and keep it off. Never use a hairdryer or other hot air on the machine as this can push the liquid into further components and create an environment of high humidity. Simply find a recovery service and let the experts handle it. There are hundreds of software utility tools that can be downloaded off the internet for free, and offer promises of fast and easy data retrieval. Unfortunately, many of these are filled with malware, and using them will expose the data to theft or worse. Avoid using free utility services that do not have an established reputation as effective and virus-free tools.

If you have a storage device that you have not used for a while and you realize that you deleted information a long time ago, it is possible to recover it. There are different tools when recovering files, and one of them are data recovery software, programs specialized in the recovery of any type of file and that work under any operating system. See extra info on Recover permanently deleted files.