Have I lost all my data?

[treenlev]

I have been using an WD external hard drive (2 actually) for a few years now. One of them has been giving me trouble off and on for several months. Sometimes my computer can see that it is there, but won't read any of the files. Usually a quick unplug of the drive get's it working again or a restart of the computer.

However, as of yesterday I can't access any of the data I have on it. When I look in "my computer" it shows up as "local disk L" instead of it saying "My book L" like it used to. The WD icon is no longer visible either. When I click on it in my computer, it freezes my PC. It has also asked me to reformat it when I initially plug it in (which I have not done).

I have most of my pictures backed up, but not all and would love to find a solution! I have tried to plug it into my laptop and it wants to install it and format it too.

Thanks for any help you may have.

[Alucardx23]

Is provable that your information is corrupted. Try using a data recovery program like testdisk to recover your files and then reformat the my book.

[Keith]

Mmm.. I see.. What does the SMART data look like? Before we start running software let us ascertain the condition of the disk and see what the failure is.