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So, the WD my passport external harddisk is dropped, and after that, the computer is unable to read it anymore. I was hopping if I can just find another case to try if the harddisk is still readable, but looks like the hard drive itself is not a normal SATA or PATA drive. I think it's modified. So, I can't find another case that I can try on.

In the computer, I still can see the drive in the "Disk Management", but it's shown as Uninitialized, no size, and no drive letter.

enter image description here

I've also tried a couple of recovery tools. Some can't detect at all, there is one (find and mount software) that can detect but shows 0 size. None of them can recover the data.

WD is willing to replace it with a new one, but I still need to recover the data. Any way I can recover the data?

UPDATE:
I tried initialized it from the windows Disk Manager, but it give error "The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error."

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    > was hopping if I can just find another case to try if the harddisk is still readable Chances are that the disk is what is damaged as opposed to the enclosure. While the enclosure could give those symptoms because of a busted connector or something, the hard-drive itself is much more fragile and sensitive to shock and more likely to be the problem. :-(
    – Synetech
    Commented Oct 6, 2012 at 19:04

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What i can guess from the symptoms is that your system cannot read the partition table. Your disk can be damaged in several ways :

  • if the disk is damaged and has hardware errors, there are tools like ddrescue (linux tool) which try to recover as much data as possible from the disk, then you can try to recover some of its data
  • if only the partition table was damaged during the fall but most of the drive is ok, you can try recovering your partition using gpart (linux tool too) and/or testdisk
  • if the recovered data is too damaged but you managed to dump come of its content with ddrescue you might use tools to find and recover specific type of file like PhotoRec for photos'

Last possibility give the disk to a data recovery specialist who will open it and try to recover as much data as possible but its quite costy, with no guaranteed result and the disk will be trashed.

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  • I've got to wait until tomorrow night to try out these Linux softwares. Yeah, it costs 1800 RM which is equivalent to 600 USD to recover the data. Sad.
    – Sufendy
    Commented Jul 7, 2012 at 12:32

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