Data Recovery and Disk Utilities Forum @R-TT

Hello,

So, I've got one of these dreaded WD Elements drives (which clearly got their poor reputation AFTER I had it half-filled with important data!) that has died on me. I tried recovering files, and indeed I'm able to get a lot of the files off that are less than 300mb. However, the bigger files won't come off the drive. Is the drive simply not able to spin fast enough for long enough or something like that? Clearly this is a mechanical failure, but...what else can I try to get these bigger files off?

If this is a mechanical failure, the best idea is to bring it to a reputable data recovery specialist. If this is not an option, the second idea is to create an image of the disk and try to recover files from it. R-Studio on-line help: Images.
When you say "the bigger files won't come off the drive", does that mean that the files don't appear in the folder/file structure, appear with a 0 length, or they are corrupted?