I recently dropped my WD Elements hard drive and when I plugged it in my laptop, the light was blinking and it made this beeping sound for like a minute then it stopped (but the light still kept blinking). It says that the device is installed but it doesn’t show up on my computer.
So, I went to the device manager and it’s there! But, the thing is, it doesn’t show up on my computer. And I tried uninstalling it then plugging it in. The same thing happens, the driver installs but it doesn’t show up on my computer. There’s not autoplay window asking me what I want to do with the drive.
I have no idea what to do. Any help would be really appreciated. Thanks!
What you are describing sounds like the mechanical drive was damaged when you dropped it. What you are seeing in device manager is the interface of the drive enclosure. The circuitry that allows the drive to communicate to the computer is still working but the drive itself had a mechanical failure when you dropped it. If that is the case, data recovery will be an option but since it is mechanical, the cost will be higher as it might require a clean room environment to disassemble the drive to get the data off. Western Digital does not provide data recovery services but there are partners that we work with that can help you.
