Data Recovery and Disk Utilities Forum @R-TT

grabmyrooster wrote:Dunno why this posted as Guest, because I had signed in before posting, but okay.
It shows up as "Local Disk" in "My Computer" before it freezes, so surely it must be a software issue, right?

No. It freezes when you try to access it, that is, a rather heavy data exchange occurs. Most likely, something wrong with the disk firmware, but only a professional may determine.
You may also try to connect it to a computer with another OS, Linux or Mac. But, I'm afraid, the result will be the same.

Dunno why this posted as Guest, because I had signed in before posting, but okay.
It shows up as "Local Disk" in "My Computer" before it freezes, so surely it must be a software issue, right? I'm hoping like crazy it's software and not hardware because there's no way I can afford data recovery if it's hardware, and there's no way I'm trusting some random person I don't know with both all of my files AND hundreds of dollars.

This is almost surely a hardware problem with the disk. You've got to goo to a data recovery professional, you won't be able to recover data yourself.

I've got a WD Elements 2Tb external, and Windows Update caused my computer to crash. Before the 2nd to last crash, my hard drive was fine and in working order and I was trying to figure out the problem with my computer. After the last two crashes yesterday, I gave up. Today, I've fixed my computer and restored everything to the way it should be, only now my external won't work. I've tried plugging it into every computer I have, and I've even removed it from the enclosure (to find a nice WD Caviar Green) and installed it manually in my computer, at which point the computer wouldn't boot. I've tried the WD diagnostic tool, which doesn't even open after "detecting disks." "My Computer" freezes and crashes all of Windows Explorer when the drive is actually detected, and any program attempting to access it also closes. I couldn't get TestDisk to recognize it, and R-Studio is stuck at "Initializing..." whenever I try and start it while the drive is detected. I've got about a terabyte and a half of data on this drive, including over 700Gb of music from my grandpa's record collection that I can't get back. Any help is appreciated.