Help with Western Digital Passport Ultra 1TB external HDD, please.

[Chairman Maouth]

I coud use some help please.

The HDD portable external drive is at least 10-12 years old. I don't think I wiped the drive, but there is a small possibility of that. This is the model.

I accidentally clicked on 'save login information" when accessing the external drive. I never want to do that. I want to have to enter a password whenever I access the drive for security reasons. If someone steals my computer they don't need a password to access my external storage.

I couldn't find how to re-enable password protection anywhere, but something I did made the volume on the external drive inaccessible. It is now zero. I tried changing the drive letter and about a million other things I got from Google but had no luck. I am almost certain I didn't do a format and I think my files are still there but the drive shows no files and it has a zero volume. Interestingly, I was able to load a picture onto the external drive so I can write data to it, but I cannot see my old files. When I open the drive it's essentially an empty folder. I would really appreciate any help I can get recovering my files.

Thanks.

Here are some images that may be helpful. I'll break them up into a couple of posts. C is my Windows 11 OS.

 

[Osprey]

For the record, I've never used WD's drive/security software, but I'll try to help.

I suggest following the steps under "Known Password Steps" halfway down this page:

Western Digital Support | Western Digital

Find detailed answers to your support questions for your Western Digital products.

support-en.wd.com

Once unlocked with the WD Security app, see if you can access your files from File Explorer. If so, I recommend backing them up somewhere else, like a USB stick, especially since the drive is 10+ years old and could die at any moment. If the files amount to only 3GB, like it appears, that shouldn't be hard. After that, you should be able to use the WD Security app again to lock them again. If the login information is still saved after that, try unlocking the drive again and locking it with a different password. That should invalidate the saved login information. If not and as a last resort, you could try re-formatting the drive (probably with WD Drive Utilities, which is linked near the top of the above web page), copying your files to it from your backup and then re-locking it.

If none of that helps, you might want to contact WD support: Western Digital Support | Western Digital

 

[Chairman Maouth]

For the record, I've never used WD's drive/security software, but I'll try to help.

I suggest following the steps under "Known Password Steps" halfway down this page:

Western Digital Support | Western Digital

Find detailed answers to your support questions for your Western Digital products.

support-en.wd.com

Once unlocked with the WD Security app, see if you can access your files from File Explorer. If so, I recommend backing them up somewhere else, like a USB stick, especially since the drive is 10+ years old and could die at any moment. If the files amount to only 3GB, like it appears, that shouldn't be hard. After that, you should be able to use the WD Security app again to lock them again. If the login information is still saved after that, try unlocking the drive again and locking it with a different password. That should invalidate the saved login information. If not and as a last resort, you could try re-formatting the drive (probably with WD Drive Utilities, which is linked near the top of the above web page), copying your files to it from your backup and then re-locking it.

If none of that helps, you might want to contact WD support: Western Digital Support | Western Digital

Thanks for your help.

I already tried accessing the files from File Explorer. There is nothing to access. It's like the drive is blank. And there are close to 900 GB in files on the drive. Most of that is TV, movies, and live music concerts and videos, but some is saved personal information accumulated over a span of 25 years that is extremely important to me, some of which is not backed up elsewhere. I guess I'm learning a lesson about that.

I had already tried the WD Security tools and they were of no help.

Boiled down, here is the issue. I know my password. That is not the problem. The problem was that I enabled auto login by mistake. I couldn't find any way to re-enable it so I tried something that messed things up. I am still convinced there is nearly 900 GB of data on the drive but it's invisible and therefore useless. I need to find it.

Thanks again.

 

[Albatros]

In any case you won't wipe 900GB without noticing it, the rest is just a matter of recovery methods. I wouldn't do anything that isn't carefully planned beforehand.

 

[Chairman Maouth]

In any case you won't wipe 900GB without noticing it, the rest is just a matter of recovery methods. I wouldn't do anything that isn't carefully planned beforehand.

That's what I'm thinking too. I'm not doing anything more without solid advice. I'm going to post this on a WD forum. I'll let you know what happens. Thanks again.

 

[Osprey]

If the files are still there, you should be able to recover them with file recovery software. A free application that I've successfully used before is Recuva.

Download Recuva | Recover deleted files, free!

Recover and un-delete files with Recuva, the award-winning file recovery tool by the makers of CCleaner. Download the latest version today.

www.ccleaner.com

I would install it, run it, see what it finds on the drive and try to recover it. If you recover anything, do it to another drive. Don't do any saving of any kind to the WD drive, since it may overwrite the files that are there and interfere with future attempts to restore the drive.

 

[Chairman Maouth]

If the files are still there, you should be able to recover them with file recovery software. A free application that I've successfully used before is Recuva.

Download Recuva | Recover deleted files, free!

Recover and un-delete files with Recuva, the award-winning file recovery tool by the makers of CCleaner. Download the latest version today.

www.ccleaner.com

I would install it, run it, see what it finds on the drive and try to recover it. If you recover anything, do it to another drive. Don't do any saving of any kind to the WD drive, since it may overwrite the files that are there and interfere with future attempts to restore the drive.

Thanks. I was already considering something like that but I already posted on a WD forum and I'd like to see if there's help there first. I will definitely try it if nothing positive happens there.

I notice there's a free and a paid version of Recuva. With the free version I imagine there's a limit on file size you can recover. Some of my movies on the drive are over 20 GB with some of the TV series being over 30. I honestly don't care as much about those as I do my personal and work files. Movies and TV series can be downloaded again. My personal stuff can't be. Still though, it's only 33 bucks to download a paid version and that would be worth it. I could suss it out when I try the free version.

The first thing I will do is get my personal files off the drive and onto my laptop. There's enough room on it. I'll breathe easier then and worry about the movies, TV and MP3s later.

Thanks, you've been a lot of help.

 

[Osprey]

I notice there's a free and a paid version of Recuva. With the free version I imagine there's a limit on file size you can recover. Some of my movies on the drive are over 20 GB with some of the TV series being over 30. I honestly don't care as much about those as I do my personal and work files. Movies and TV series can be downloaded again. My personal stuff can't be. Still though, it's only 33 bucks to download a paid version and that would be worth it. I could suss it out when I try the free version.

I don't think that the free version of Recuva has any recovery limitations. The download page doesn't list any and gives "virtual hard drive support, automatic updates and priority support" as the three things that you get with the pro version, so I don't see any point in buying it. If the free version doesn't get the job done, try another recovery software, like Active@ File Recovery (pretty affordable at $30) or Stellar Data Recovery ($60, but seemingly the best, from what I've read). They have demos/trials, so you can try them out before buying.

 

[JaegerDice]

To be clear, you're having no issues actually opening the drive in Explorer, it's just that when you do, you don't see any of the files that are taking up space on the drive?

Thanks. I was already considering something like that but I already posted on a WD forum and I'd like to see if there's help there first. I will definitely try it if nothing positive happens there.

I notice there's a free and a paid version of Recuva. With the free version I imagine there's a limit on file size you can recover. Some of my movies on the drive are over 20 GB with some of the TV series being over 30. I honestly don't care as much about those as I do my personal and work files. Movies and TV series can be downloaded again. My personal stuff can't be. Still though, it's only 33 bucks to download a paid version and that would be worth it. I could suss it out when I try the free version.

The first thing I will do is get my personal files off the drive and onto my laptop. There's enough room on it. I'll breathe easier then and worry about the movies, TV and MP3s later.

Thanks, you've been a lot of help.

And to clarify, you were using Western Digital's onboard security measures, rather than BitLocker that comes with Windows when you made this 'save login info' mishap?

Did the files 'disappear' after fooling around in Western Digital's onboard security setup, fooling around in BitLocker, or fooling around in Windows Disk Management?

This is probably a stupid question, but you've already enabled the 'show hidden files, folders and drives' option in explorer, right?

Or even used registry editor to edit HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer to remove any NoViewOnDrive" or "NoDrives" DWORDs?

Beyond that, I would try:

1) Booting up in Safe Mode and seeing if you can access the files

2) Plugging the drive into a PC with Windows 10 on it rather than Windows 11. This could simply be a matter of an old driver that runs into problems with the latest version of Windows.

 

[Chairman Maouth]

To be clear, you're having no issues actually opening the drive in Explorer, it's just that when you do, you don't see any of the files that are taking up space on the drive?




And to clarify, you were using Western Digital's onboard security measures, rather than BitLocker that comes with Windows when you made this 'save login info' mishap?

Did the files 'disappear' after fooling around in Western Digital's onboard security setup, fooling around in BitLocker, or fooling around in Windows Disk Management?

This is probably a stupid question, but you've already enabled the 'show hidden files, folders and drives' option in explorer, right?

Or even used registry editor to edit HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer to remove any NoViewOnDrive" or "NoDrives" DWORDs?

Beyond that, I would try:

1) Booting up in Safe Mode and seeing if you can access the files

2) Plugging the drive into a PC with Windows 10 on it rather than Windows 11. This could simply be a matter of an old driver that runs into problems with the latest version of Windows.

Thanks for all that. I got really busy for a while.

Did the files 'disappear' after fooling around in Western Digital's onboard security setup,

Essentially, yes. I accidentally clicked on save login information. I didn't want to do that. I then tried to fix what I did but made some kind of mistake. And WD makes something that should be very easy very challenging. Basically, they don't tell you how to switch back to needing your login info.

I didn't use bitlocker at all.

I should mention that I did this a couple of years ago and I was able to fix it. I couldn't remember exactly how I did it but it involved changing the drive letter and name. This time doing that f***ed things up.

Or even used registry editor to edit HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer to remove any NoViewOnDrive" or "NoDrives" DWORDs?

That goes above my onboard knowledge base.

1) Booting up in Safe Mode and seeing if you can access the files

2) Plugging the drive into a PC with Windows 10 on it rather than Windows 11. This could simply be a matter of an old driver that runs into problems with the latest version of Windows.

I have tried neither of those but I found files using the software Osprey recommended. The problem is that you can find them, but you can't recover them. I suspect if I paid I might be able to.

I take it that "No overwritten clusters detected" are undamaged, recoverable files. Does that make sense?

Do you know what "Invalid clusters range" means? I have many files with that designation that I did not delete and would like to get back.

Then there's "This file is overwritten with... " which could be files I deleted because they were of no further use.

 

[Osprey]

Yes, "No overwritten clusters detected" means files that haven't been overwritten. Normally, the "State" column will say either "Not deleted" (because the files can be seen and accessed normally) or "Excellent" (meaning that the files are likely recoverable). The problem that I see in your case is that it says "Unknown." My guess is that there's a problem with the drive's partition or boot sector.

TestDisk is another free recovery software. It's more powerful than Recuva, but doesn't have a nice GUI. It's simply command line. It can undelete files, like Recuva, but also fix partitions and boot sectors.

Partition Recovery and File Undelete

TestDisk is a free and open source data recovery software tool designed to recover lost partition and unerase deleted files.

www.cgsecurity.org

First, I would try using its undelete ability to recover the files. It may not work, like Recuva, but you might as well be safe and try it first, anyways. If it works, remember again to save the recovered files to a different hard drive.

8. Recovering deleted files using TestDisk — testdisk 7.2 documentation

After that, I would try to repair/recover the partition:

9. Recovering deleted partition using TestDisk — testdisk 7.2 documentation

If that doesn't fix things, I would try repairing the boot sector:

7. Repairing filesystem — testdisk 7.2 documentation

Realize that the last two will alter the drive and possibly complicate or ruin further recovery attempts, so be careful, don't select anything if you aren't sure that you should and are willing to blame yourself if it was a mistake.

 

[Chairman Maouth]

Yes, "No overwritten clusters detected" means files that haven't been overwritten. Normally, the "State" column will say either "Not deleted" (because the files can be seen and accessed normally) or "Excellent" (meaning that the files are likely recoverable). The problem that I see in your case is that it says "Unknown." My guess is that there's a problem with the drive's partition or boot sector.

TestDisk is another free recovery software. It's more powerful than Recuva, but doesn't have a nice GUI. It's simply command line. It can undelete files, like Recuva, but also fix partitions and boot sectors.

Partition Recovery and File Undelete

TestDisk is a free and open source data recovery software tool designed to recover lost partition and unerase deleted files.

www.cgsecurity.org

First, I would try using its undelete ability to recover the files. It may not work, like Recuva, but you might as well be safe and try it first, anyways. If it works, remember again to save the recovered files to a different hard drive.

8. Recovering deleted files using TestDisk — testdisk 7.2 documentation

After that, I would try to repair/recover the partition:

9. Recovering deleted partition using TestDisk — testdisk 7.2 documentation

If that doesn't fix things, I would try repairing the boot sector:

7. Repairing filesystem — testdisk 7.2 documentation

Realize that the last two will alter the drive and possibly complicate or ruin further recovery attempts, so be careful, don't select anything if you aren't sure that you should and are willing to blame yourself if it was a mistake.

My computer prowess is really going to be tested with that stuff.

I use Win 11 Pro 64-bit. TestDisk states that it's compatible with:

• FAT12/16/32

Is that going to be a problem? It seems to be designed for much older operating systems.

But I really appreciate your continued help.

 

[Chairman Maouth]

I couldn't even get TestDisk running but I tried qphotorec_win and even recovered some files. These are what I recovered.

I stopped the operation after only a couple of seconds though because I feared it could start writing over good data on my OS drive. It doesn't appear to have the option of viewing files before they're recovered. They go straight to recovery which means I could potentially destroy my OS if it starts to get written over. Would I get an alert from qphotorec telling me that my free space is running low? I would hope so but I don't know and that's a chance I can't take. Now the trick is to figure out how to limit the files I recover. I can transfer maybe 100 GB at a time to my OS drive and then ship them out to another drive that I think I can rig up as a another external drive.

I'm also wondering if qphotorec recovers all files or just photos like the name implies. As you can see by the screencap those are image files I scanned from microfilm.

But this is promising. We now know there are recoverable files on the drive.

 

[Osprey]

If you scroll down the first linked page that I gave, you'll see that TestDisk supports dozens of file systems, not just FAT ones. That includes NTFS, which your drive seems to be formatted in (according to your original screenshots).

The program has been around a very long time, but is still being actively updated. The most recent stable release that you should've downloaded is only a year old.

It ran just fine on my Win 10 64-bit system and should also run on Win 11. Were you running testdisk_win.exe?

As for QPhotoRec, there's a Browse button in the bottom right that lets you choose where to save files. Use that to save the recovered files to another drive.

 

[Chairman Maouth]

There is no testdisk_win.exe program in the zip folder. There is a QPhotoRec exe file so I ran that. I have no idea how to run TestDisk.

This stuff is like a foreign language to me.

 

[Osprey]

Your antivirus program must've quarantined it when you extracted it. If you know how to run that and allow/recover a quarantined file, you can do that... or just continue using QPhotoRec if media files and documents are all that you need to restore and you don't mind that it doesn't recover the file names.

 

[Chairman Maouth]

I downloaded testdisk-7.2-WIP.win64. Most of the downloads are 7.1 but I found an exe file in 7.2 but I ran it and now I'm lost again. The exe file is right below the black window.

 

[Chairman Maouth]

I need to take a break and clear my head - get out for awhile. Again, thanks s much. I'll be back later.