External HDD Failure

[robwalte]

My 500gb Western Digital MyBook suddenly failed. I couldn't see it from Windows Explorer one day. I restarted the computer, and was able to see it in Explorer for a few minutes, but suddenly Vista told me there was a problem with the drive. Since then, I can only see it in Device Manager. The drive is spinning constantly, and no strange sounds are coming from the drive. I have put it in a new enclosure as well.

I suspect maybe a partition table is corrupted.

Any suggestions? I'm at my wit's end. The drive contains hundreds of pictures.

[Tom]

If the drive shows up in device manager it should be accessible on a hardware level, so iRecover should be able to scan the disk and get you your pictures back. On the other hand, if it's just a partition table problem (as you seem to think) DiskPatch should be able to fix that in minutes.
If you'd like us to take a look post a support analysis log. The stickies in the DiskPatch forum explain all we need to know and have, please read them.
http://www.diydatarecovery.nl/forum/index.php?topic=5.0

[robwalte]

Hello Tom - I downloaded DP, created bootable DVD, formatted USB drive using HP's utility, rebooted from DP DVD and it can't see my bad external drive. It doesn't show my other, working external drive either.  Both external drives, good and bad, will still show up in device manager, however.

I'm assuming at this point I need to install it in my desktop (I was trying this from my laptop with the drive in a USB enclosure) because DP needs a direct connection?

[Tom]

Yes, preferably. It's always best to have disks connected through their native interface when accessing them low-level (as is needed for DP). Also, USB may mess up disk parameter recognition and that will adversely affect a repair. Still, most modern machines allow low-level access through USB, so i kinda would have expected your setup to work. It may need some BIOS tweaking to get going. But, as stated, it's always best to connect the disks directly.