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The read heads, the motor, or the platters. Software can't fix this, and running the drive can scrape the platters and destroy the data for good.

1. Unplug it now and leave it unplugged.
2. If it's a small portable drive that beeps, try it once on a different USB port directly on the computer (or a powered USB hub). Some beep only because the port can't give them enough power. If it still beeps, stop.
3. If the files matter, contact a data recovery lab with a clean room. Most give a free quote first, and many charge nothing if nothing can be recovered. Expect several hundred dollars or more for a mechanical repair.
4. Tell the lab what happened (dropped, power cut, started clicking) and how long it ran since.

Don't open the case, freeze it, tap it, or keep powering it on to "see if it comes back". Each try can make the lab's job harder or impossible.

Most often something simple: a worn cable, a weak USB port, or a drive that needs more power. Less often the drive's electronics or its USB bridge (the small board that turns USB into the drive's own connection).

1. Try a different cable. Cables, especially the wide USB 3 "micro-B" plugs on portable drives, fail far more often than drives do.
2. Plug it straight into the computer, into a different port (on a desktop, one at the back), without a hub or dock.
3. On a laptop, plug in the charger: some ports give less power on battery. A 3.5" desktop drive needs its own power adapter, switched on.
4. Listen and feel: does it spin up (a soft hum, a slight vibration)? If there's no sound at all, or it clicks, see the mechanical problem above.
5. Try another computer. If it shows up there, the first computer's port or driver is the problem.
6. Still nothing: for a USB stick or memory card, try another reader; if it's dead everywhere, only a lab can read the memory chips directly. For a drive in a case, the case's USB board may have failed; see the note below before opening it.

Many WD My Passport and My Book drives encrypt everything in their USB board, and some have USB built onto the drive itself: taking the drive out of its case can make the data unreadable. Check the model first, or ask a lab.

0 bytes, a few megabytes, or "No media": the drive's own controller (on flash drives and cards) or the USB bridge has a fault, or a card reader has no card in it. The data itself is usually still there.

1. Check the card is fully in, then try a different card reader or adapter.
2. For a drive in a USB case, try a different USB port and cable first.
3. If a memory card or USB stick shows a wrong size in every reader, its controller has failed. Software can't fix that; a lab can read its memory chips directly.

Don't click Initialize, Format, or create a new partition when Windows offers: on a wrong-size drive, that writes new structures over the real ones.

Usually the file system's index is damaged, often after the drive was unplugged or the computer lost power while writing. The files themselves are usually untouched. Sometimes the cause is bad sectors right where the index sits, which means the drive is also failing.

1. Click Cancel on any Format or Initialize prompt.
2. Check the drive's health first: read its health log (S.M.A.R.T.). That decides the next step.
3. Healthy drive (no reallocated or pending sectors): the damage is only in the file system. Use a recovery tool that reads the index directly, and copy the files to another drive.
4. Failing drive (pending or reallocated sectors, slow or hanging reads): treat it as fragile. Copy the most important files first with a tool that skips bad spots and comes back later, or make an image of the whole drive first and recover from the image.
5. Only after every file you need is safe, repair or reformat the drive, if it's healthy enough to keep.

Don't run CHKDSK or "Scan and fix" first: on a damaged index it can delete the records it can't make sense of, and with them the names of your files.

The drive is encrypted. BitLocker needs your password or its 48-digit recovery key. Some WD drives encrypt in their USB board even with no password set, so they only read through that same board.

1. BitLocker: if you've lost the password, find the recovery key: on a Microsoft account it's listed at account.microsoft.com/devices/recoverykey; it may also be printed, saved to a file, or held by your work's IT department.
2. Once unlocked, the drive works like any other: go back to the questions.
3. WD drive taken out of its case and now unreadable: put it back in its own case (or an identical model's).

Without the key or the original USB board, no recovery tool can read encrypted data. Don't format the drive while you look for the key.

The drive has weak or bad sectors. Each time Windows hits one, the drive retries for up to half a minute and Windows retries too, which is why Explorer says "Not responding". Every retry wears the weak spots further.

1. Stop the copy that's freezing. If Explorer won't cancel, unplug the drive: that's safe while you're only reading from it.
2. Read its health log: pending and reallocated sectors confirm the drive is failing.
3. Decide what matters most, and copy that first, in small batches, with a tool that skips bad spots instead of retrying them (even robocopy can be told not to retry: /R:0 /W:0).
4. Keep it cool, lying flat and still, plugged straight into the computer with a good cable. If it disconnects, try another cable and port.
5. Once the important files are safe, go back for the rest, or make a full image while the drive still reads.

Don't run a full surface test, defragment, or CHKDSK on it now: each reads or writes the whole drive, including every weak spot.

Deleting only marks a file's space as free. The contents stay until something new is written there. On SSDs it's different: Windows tells the SSD the space is free (TRIM), and the SSD usually erases it within minutes.

1. Check the backups that may already have it: the Recycle Bin; OneDrive, Google Drive or Dropbox (their own recycle bins keep deleted files for weeks); File History or Previous Versions (right-click the folder, then Properties, then Previous Versions); a phone's cloud backup for photos.
2. Stop using the drive. On the system drive (C:) that means as little as possible: every program you run writes to it. Don't install a recovery tool onto that drive.
3. Run a recovery tool from another drive, and save what it finds to another drive. PhotoRec and Recuva are free.
4. Recently deleted, not yet overwritten files usually come back with their names. Files found only by their content (photos, documents) come back without names or folders.

On an internal SSD, if the backups above don't have it, the chances are low. On hard drives, memory cards and USB sticks, they're good if you stop writing straight away.

A quick format writes a new, empty index over the start of the drive. A full format (Windows Vista and later) also overwrites every sector with zeros.

1. Stop writing to it.
2. Quick format on a hard drive, card or stick: the old file system is usually still there behind the new one. A tool that searches for the previous file system (TestDisk, DMDE, R-Studio) can often bring back files with their names; failing that, search by content (PhotoRec).
3. Full format, or any format of an SSD: the data is gone. Check backups and cloud copies instead.

Don't format it again "to start over", and don't copy the files back onto the same drive.

Either the small lock switch on the side of an SD card slid down, or the card has worn out and locked itself read-only, which flash cards do at the end of their life.

1. Check the switch: slide it up (towards the contacts), and try again.
2. If it still says write-protected, copy everything off it now, while it still reads.
3. Then replace the card. A card that locked itself won't be reliable again.

Don't try tools that "remove write protection" or format it before your files are copied.