Member Avatar for indapipe

I have an approx 5 year old Western Digital Scorpio 80GB hard drive (model WD800VE-75HDT1) that came in a laptop that I no longer have. One day the drive stopped working. I took it out of the lappy and slapped it into a USB enclosure. When I connect it to a computer via USB for the first time The USB "Du-dum" sounds and the "installing drivers" box comes up. In the box it recognizes the drive by its full model number above but after a few minutes it says driver install "Failed". I open device manager and it is listed under "disk drives" by its complete model number and under properties it says "This device is working properly." However under "volumes" tab it is empty and when I click populate a box pops up with a red x saying "volume information for this disk cannot be found". In the computer management console under Disk Management it does not list the drive at all, neither as formatted, unformatted nor unallocated...nothing at all except my other drives which are working fine. The drive seems to be spinning up fine with no weird clicks or clacks or thunks or any odd noises so it doesn't seem to be physically damaged. Any thoughts? Thanks.

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by caperjack

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When a drive shows up by model in Device Manager but not in Disk Management, Windows is seeing the USB bridge but can’t get valid capacity/partition info from the disk itself. That is often power, jumper, or enclosure chipset related, not just a bad MBR. may still be right about failed electronics, but you can quickly rule out the easy stuff first.

  • Confirm the interface and jumpers. The WD800VE is a 2.5 in PATA/IDE drive, not SATA. In most WD PATA setups a single drive is “Single/Device 0” (no jumper). Some USB-IDE bridges prefer “Master.” Check the label on the drive and try Single, then Master if needed. (silentpcreview.com)
  • Rule out the enclosure and power. Test the enclosure with another known-good 2.5 in PATA drive and try a different USB cable/port. Older 2.5 in disks can draw more than a single USB 2.0 port reliably supplies at spin-up; using a powered USB hub can help stabilize power. (tripplite.eaton.com)
  • Bypass the USB bridge. If you can, connect the WD800VE directly to a desktop IDE port (or a known-good 44‑pin IDE adapter). Many tools cannot fully probe a drive through some third‑party USB bridges, so a native IDE path is the best sanity check. (support-en.wd.com)

Since does not need data, if the disk appears after any of the steps above, reinitialize it from an elevated Command Prompt:

diskpart
list disk
select disk <n>   // be certain this is the WD800VE
clean              // wipes partition info
create partition primary
format fs=ntfs quick
assign

If list disk never shows the drive even when attached via IDE, or diagnostics can’t see it, treat it as failed electronics and retire it as suggested. (learn.microsoft.com)

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All 11 Replies

Member Avatar for Rik_

It's obviously faulty!

Member Avatar for indapipe

It's obviously faulty!

Yeah...thanks Rik. That's pretty much the reason why I posted.

Member Avatar for Rik_

As in physical damage. The only way you will get your data off that is via professional data recovery and that's expensive!

It's most likely that the drives electronics are damaged!

Edited by Rik_ because: n/a
Member Avatar for indapipe

As in physical damage. The only way you will get your data off that is via professional data recovery and that's expensive!

It's most likely that the drives electronics are damaged!

Oh, ok. Thanks. I'm actually not interested in recovering data. Don't even remember what's on it. I was just hoping to be able to use it as an external. It's such a waste.

Member Avatar for indapipe

Is there no way to repair it? It seems like it wants to be used since it is recognized properly by Device Manager. Could it be that MBR is damaged or other such thing corrupted?

Member Avatar for Rik_

If, as I suspect, the electronics have had it it's just not worth repairing. Especially seeing how cheap hard drive are nowadays! I got a 500gig laptop sata for just £49.99 for example!

Member Avatar for indapipe

Is there some diagnostic software available that can bypass the OS and check an attached physical drive to determine the problem? Thanks.

Member Avatar for Rik_

Not for free use there isn't!

Member Avatar for caperjack

check western digital site for a drive utility that if it can see the drive will maybe let you right the drive to zeros and format the drive .

check this link/list for links to westerndigital
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic28744.html

Member Avatar for indapipe

Thanks to both Rik and Jack but so far no joy.

Member Avatar for caperjack

so did you run tool,if so did it see the drive to scan it,if no,then do what i do with drive like that,toss it away

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