External disk drive disappeared

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I have a WB 1TB external disk drive that started giving me problems (not reading some sectors, getting stuck when trying to access some sectors etc). I decided, on advice, to reformat it. But reformatting also got stuck and would not complete. Now the drive isn't recognised by my PC when I plug it in (PC is running windows vista home). Any ideas?
 
Bin it and buy another, it sounds like classic drive failure. If you're lucky it's still under warranty.
 
Large hammer and the dustbin?

If it is unreliable then you are not going to trust it with your data. If it is under warranty send it back. you could get the drive out of the housing and connect it direct to a sata or IDE port on the PC delete and make a new partition then try to format again... but then you'd be waiting for it to go wrong again.
 
Definitely skip fodder.
I agree, even if you managed to get it going again, would you ever trust it?
 
Thanks guys. Should be under warranty but Lord knows where the receipt might be. I've got receipts for everything else I've ever bought in a box, but is this one in it? No.

The receipt monster, cousin to the sock monster!
 
Large hammer and the dustbin?

If it is unreliable then you are not going to trust it with your data. If it is under warranty send it back. you could get the drive out of the housing and connect it direct to a sata or IDE port on the PC delete and make a new partition then try to format again... but then you'd be waiting for it to go wrong again.

Spot on, if the drive fails during a format windows wont see it again until you have rebuilt the drive you may even have to rebuild the master boot record or MBR there is software available for this as I have done it in the past.

But like RobertP says and I agree that you will be keeping an eye on that drive hoping it does not fail again.

And lets be honest even a 100 meg's worth of images is a lot to lose if they are all keepers !

Anyway good luck with getting it swapped out for a new one.
 
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