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The request failed due to a fatal device hardware - WD Hard drive

Hi All,

 I encounter this error message today with my external hard drive WD: The request failed due to a fatal device hardware

Able to detect at My Computer: it shows 430gb free of 1.81TB however when open one folder, it shows The request failed due to a fatal device hardware.

I have tried with windows 7 and windows 8.1, both the same error, plus have swop different usb cables.

Please advise what are the steps I should do to be able to open up my files as I do not wish to format my hard disk.

Thank you.

Hi there.

I'm sorry to hear about the issue you're having - I know how unpleasant it can be.

What I would suggest is to check drive's health with Data Lifeguard Diagnostics and see what the results will be. You can download the program from the WD software window here:

http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=RpC9R3

You can run a quick test, or an extended test if you want, but keep in mind that the extended one may lead to data loss because if the DLG finds anything wrong it will try to fix it automatically.

Let me know how it went.
An official WD representative

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Hi MightyMiro_WD,

Thanks for replying,

I have tried downloading the Data Lifeguard Utility. I have run the test and it shows SMART status PASS.

What should I do now?

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If the external is D: its showing size of 491.83 with all free
Contributor since 2006
Currently win11 Pro & O365 Bus, multiple devices

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Hi again mate.

Are you sure this is the drive you meant? Because this model number is of an internal drive, and furthermore it shows only 1TB capacity while the drive you mentioned is 2TB, which makes me think that this is your current boot drive.

What I would suggest is to rerun the test and see if the 2TB drive will appear there. If not, then you can give LinuxLiveCD a shot in order to access your data. You can follow these steps in order to do that:

1. Download and burn the ISO image of Linux to a CD or USB.
2. Once you do this, go in BIOS and change the boot order to the media you burned the Linux on. 
3. Restart the computer and when it loads, try and mount the drives (or if Linux can read it, it will mount by itself).
4. See if you can access the data stored there and if you do - transfer it to another location. 

Let me know how it went. :)
An official WD representative

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Last updated January 6, 2024 Views 14,796 Applies to: