WD Passport died?

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Posted: 5/1/2022 1:09:21 PM EDT

I have been using a 1Tb Western Digital Passport to automatically backup my MacBook using the time machine option,

This week I noticed that on 2 days it said that it failed to complete the backup. Yesterday it completed the backup but now it seems to be non-functioning.

The LED light still comes on when powered to the USB, but it doesn’t show anymore as an external drive in my directory.

Tried it on a different laptop and had the same results.

Downloaded the WD disk utility and it shows up there, but doesn’t seem to respond when I try to due a status or drive test.

The drive is maybe 3 years old and up to this week has been trouble free?

The only thing I can’t check is the cable. It is USB on one end. Something proprietary on the drive end.

Any other suggestions?

Posted: 5/1/2022 1:19:54 PM EDT

[#1]

I've been getting emails about some of their older services being discontinued for quite a while.
It could be one of those.

I'd post one, but I typically delete them.

Posted: 5/1/2022 1:33:13 PM EDT

[#2]

Is it one of these style cables? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XX1VX5L?tag=arfcom00-20

Posted: 5/1/2022 1:34:10 PM EDT

[#3]

It has a 3 year warranty, it expired 4/17/22.

I think that everything that is on there is on my hard drive too. Hopefully no data is lost.

Posted: 5/1/2022 1:38:12 PM EDT

[#4]

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Is it one of these style cables? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XX1VX5L?tag=arfcom00-20

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Yes, that looks just like it. I don’t think it is the cable because occasionally the hard drive is making a clicking sound. It never did that before.

Posted: 5/1/2022 1:41:07 PM EDT

[#5]

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Quoted:
It has a 3 year warranty, it expired 4/17/22.

I think that everything that is on there is on my hard drive too. Hopefully no data is lost.

View Quote

Call WD. They may give you a free 30 day extension. Seagate did on one of my drives that failed just out of warranty.

Also, a backup drive failure should not mean the loss of any data since presumably you are using the rule of three. If not, take this as a lesson and get with the program.

Posted: 5/1/2022 2:21:44 PM EDT

[#6]

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Yes, that looks just like it. I don’t think it is the cable because occasionally the hard drive is making a clicking sound. It never did that before.

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Clicking=dead drive

Posted: 5/1/2022 4:37:34 PM EDT

[#7]

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Clicking=dead drive

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RIP Passport

I sent a message to WD support. Maybe they will pity on me being 2 weeks out of warranty.

Anyone have recommendations for a similar backup? Other than this one dying, I have been happy with it.

By the way important documents are also backed up on another drive as well.

Posted: 5/3/2022 8:46:18 AM EDT

[#8]

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Quoted:

RIP Passport

I sent a message to WD support. Maybe they will pity on me being 2 weeks out of warranty.

Anyone have recommendations for a similar backup? Other than this one dying, I have been happy with it.

By the way important documents are also backed up on another drive as well.

View Quote

Get another WD drive. I'm partial to the full size models. I've had a dozen or so over the years. I also use 2 different Seagate external drives. A 6TB full size external was my most recent purchase. I needed more than 4TB and that's all my local Walmart had. It seems to work fine and fills a gap as I combine all of my NAS drives into a single file server.

Posted: 5/3/2022 9:43:11 AM EDT

[#9]

My experience with external drives has been 50/50, they just don't seem reliable.
Not necessarily with dead drives but dropping communication, going offline, etc.

Posted: 5/3/2022 10:27:37 AM EDT

[#10]

Hate to hear this. I’ve got a 2TB portable WD drive and 2 6TB WD desktop drives that have been great. I switched to WD after having a portable Seagate and 2 desktop Seagates all die the same death on me. One at work and one at home.

Reminds me, I need to pick up a new portable, my other one is pushing 6 years old and completely full.

Posted: 5/3/2022 10:36:14 AM EDT

[#11]

Buy a Transcend Storejet on Amazon. They are hardened drives.

I had a drive go bad in the past and it was the control circuit board. Open up the unit and you will find a typical laptop hard drive plugged into a tiny interface board. Sometimes you can unplug it and hook it to a simple interface/control board and get your data back. $10-30 almost anywhere. I was lucky.

Now I have a Transcend in my safe, and one that I use.

Posted: 5/3/2022 11:17:28 AM EDT

[#12]

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Sometimes you can unplug it and hook it to a simple interface/control board and get your data back. $10-30 almost anywhere. I was lucky.

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That's one thing to try (USB interface).

Another is tapping (hitting) the drive with your knuckles during initialization. Sometimes that'll get the arm to work instead of just clicking.

Also can try putting it in the freezer for several hours. Try it immediately when you remove it.

These are the ancient ways of the past.

(Not applicable to SSDs of course.)

Posted: 5/3/2022 9:31:58 PM EDT

[#13]

Any hard drive that starts clicking has lost the servo track, some disk repair facilities can open the drive and replace the R/W head and salvage the drive. If the head has damaged the platter it is probably toast.

I started using WD Purple drives in RAID 5 of 1TB each. None have failed so far. For workstations I use a 1Tb Samsung SSD.

WD Red drives seen to have the same specks as the Purples.

Posted: 5/6/2022 11:23:14 AM EDT

[#14]

Has the tech has evolved such that portable SSDs now better backups than traditional external HDDs?

Posted: 5/7/2022 9:32:14 AM EDT

[#15]

i can tell you from personal experience

about 20 years worth.

the drive is probably good. the enclosure is what has failed. take the drive out and hook it up to either an adapter or another known good enclosure

best of luck fellow gun nut

Posted: 5/21/2022 10:21:29 PM EDT

[#16]

Western Digital extended my warranty for 30 days, so I sent it back to them.

They have had it a week now. Their support system shows it is still in process of being reviewed.

Hopefully it gets returned soon.

Posted: 5/22/2022 5:12:13 AM EDT

[#17]

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Western Digital extended my warranty for 30 days, so I sent it back to them.

They have had it a week now. Their support system shows it is still in process of being reviewed.

Hopefully it gets returned soon.

View Quote

They are doing data recovery?

Posted: 5/23/2022 11:05:25 PM EDT

[#18]

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They are doing data recovery?

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Not sure….

Posted: 6/2/2022 12:09:39 PM EDT

[#19]

I copied all of the files from my laptop on my 2nd backup drive after I sent the Passport in for service.

Then my laptop died before I got my new Passport back.

WD sent me a new Passport without any of my old data on it. I contacted WD and they said all used drives are destroyed/erased.

Old data is now loaded on another laptop, Passport is making daily backups again.

Moral of the story, always have multiple backups.

Posted: 6/3/2022 10:54:52 AM EDT

[#20]

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Not sure….

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Quoted:

They are doing data recovery?

Not sure….

They are probably swapping out the control board, as a previous mentioned that the drive is probably ok its just the controller that is bad. Op i would really recommend getting a nas and putting in actual nas drives in it. most nas's are pretty robust and are designed to run all of the time plus there are other benefits to nas's such as raid configs that will protect your data better. Also a single point backup scheme is a recipe for disaster. if your backups are small enough i would also have a cloud backup that copies data from your backup solution in your house.

Posted: 6/3/2022 12:40:34 PM EDT

[#21]

Quote History

Quoted:
i can tell you from personal experience

about 20 years worth.

the drive is probably good. the enclosure is what has failed. take the drive out and hook it up to either an adapter or another known good enclosure

best of luck fellow gun nut

View Quote

Some of the external WD drives have special connectors. Instead of a sata connector on the drive inside the enclosure, it has a usb connector.

When the firmware fails, the drive can start transferring data very slowly (as in 20 kb per second slowly), or not show up at all.

I had one do this, it was a 1 TB and I had to let it transfer data for a week to get the data off, and then it got destroyed.

The drive itself was good, but the firmware got corrupted and went into a failsafe mode with slow transfers. It was a known issue with those drives, and you couldn't rip off the enclosure and pop the drive into a host machine to fix it.

Posted: 6/3/2022 12:41:36 PM EDT

[#22]

Also, drives are like guns.

Two is one and one is none.

If you only have one external backup you don't really have any external backup.

Backup to two devices, preferably from separate manufacturers.

Posted: 6/3/2022 2:24:59 PM EDT

[#23]

I lost a bunch of photo's and video's from my times in Iraq and Afghanistan due to drive failures. Sent them in to try and get them recovered, would have cost over $1000 to get them taken apart in a clean room and then it was only a possibility stuff would be savaged. Have multiple backups. I have two new separate SSD's that I backup to both now, will probably get that Transend drive that was posted so I have a third backup.

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