The enclosure for my WD My Cloud broke, so I removed the 3.5-inch hard drive and connected it to my Windows PC using a powered adapter. Windows detects several partitions and assigns them drive letters from D: through I:, but opening any of them gives a warning that the drive must be formatted before it can be used. The drive was working before the enclosure failed. How can I access or recover the files without formatting the disk?
3 Answers
A WD My Cloud drive usually uses Linux-based partitions and filesystems, so Windows may detect the partitions but still ask you to format them. Do not format the drive. You may need Linux tools to mount the filesystem or recover the files. If the drive is also corrupted or failing, recovery becomes more difficult.
If the files are important, stop experimenting and use a professional data-recovery service. If you are willing to try it yourself, first connect another drive that is at least as large and create a sector-by-sector clone of the original with a tool such as GNU ddrescue from an Ubuntu live USB. Work only on the clone afterward and keep the original untouched.
On the clone, try TestDisk first to look for and restore the original partition structure. If that cannot recover a usable partition, PhotoRec can scan the disk directly and extract files by type. You will need another destination with enough free space, and the recovered files may lose their original folder names. If the drive makes unusual noises or has read errors, stop and consider professional recovery instead.
Thanks! It is an older personal drive and most of the important files are backed up, so I am going to try the recovery steps myself.