Last Updated on September 13, 2024
In this digital age, the WD My Passport is considered one of the most popular external hard drives available. It’s lightweight, portable, and delivers a superb performance to users, making it a worthwhile investment for almost anyone – from average PC users to heavy-duty users.
However, mishandling, sudden shocks, and software and hardware issues can result in a corrupted hard drive which results in losing your precious data. Don’t fret though, as hard drive data recovery software is possible if you know what to do.
With that said, how can you recover your data from your WD My Passport hard drive?
Overview of the WD My Passport Hard Drive
Western Digital or WD is one of the most well-established hard drive manufacturers worldwide, and nothing explains it better than their My Passport external hard drive. While they have other products in their lineup, nothing quite beats the My Passport in terms of overall performance.
It’s lightweight yet solidly built, and it’s designed to survive most types of rough handling without worrying about it damaging your hard drive and its stored data. It also offers features like hardware encryption that allow you to protect any sensitive data you may have on it.
Additionally, Western Digital’s My Passport external hard drive works with both Windows and macOS right off the bat. This means you no longer have to worry about compatibility issues when using the same hard drive on different operating systems.
It comes in different storage sizes too, ranging from 1TB to an impressive 5TB. This gives you enough storage space to store extra files or simply serve as a backup for your computer’s existing files.
Tips for WD External Hard Disk Data Recovery
Although it was designed to survive most forms of mishandling, unexpected things happen, and this can result in a corrupted hard drive.
Sometimes, accidents like accidental deletions and unintended formatting of the hard drive happen, and these can result in data loss. However, this doesn’t mean you can’t recover your precious data.
- Create backups of your files
One of the best ways to ensure that you can recover any lost data is by making sure you have backups of your files. This may seem obvious, but it’s the easiest way to recover your files in case of data loss.
This is especially important if you’re storing valuable data on your WD My Passport hard drive. In fact, Western Digital’s own recovery software, the WD SmartWare, requires you to create a backup of your files. This allows it to restore any lost data should you need to.
Since this is software officially made by Western Digital for their products, you can guarantee it’ll work for your hard drive. However, the downside is that you will need to back-up your files beforehand, so it’s not ideal for sudden data loss.
- Use data recovery software like Recoverit
In the event you haven’t had the chance to create backups of your files, which is more common than most people think, then using data recovery software like Recoverit can be a great option for you.
Recoverit is an all-in-one data recovery tool that allows you to retrieve lost files, not just from your WD My Passport external hard drives but also from any kind of storage device. As such, it can be a great tool in case of accidental deletions and other kinds of unexpected data loss.
You can download the data recovery software from their website for free. However, you will need to have a Recoverit subscription in order to fully maximize everything this hard drive data recovery tool has to offer.
They have several plan tiers for users, with each having its own set of features. You just need to choose the plan that best meets your needs.
How to Recover Data from WD Passport External Hard Drive?
Software like Recoverit is fairly easy to use and you just need to follow several steps so you can recover your lost data and files.
With that said, here’s a step-by-step guide on how to use Recoverit to retrieve your lost data from your WD Passport external hard drive. Check out the steps below:
Step 1: Launch the Recoverit program.
The program will list down all your computer’s hard drives, including your connected external hard drive.
Step 2: Select your WD My Passport hard disk from the list.
There are several categories shown on the launch screen of the Recoverit software. Select your WD My Passport external hard drive from the list. It should fall under the category of External Devices.
Step 3: Click on the “Start” button.
Upon clicking on the Start button, the Recoverit hard drive data recovery software will start scanning your external hard disk drive to locate the lost data. Depending on how large your WD My Passport external hard drive is and just how many files it contains, the scanning process can take minutes.
Step 4: Check the files you want to recover.
Once the software is done scanning your external hard disk drive, you can see all the recovered data. Click on the files you want to retrieve. You can double-check if it’s really the files you want to recover by clicking on the Preview button on the right side corner of the window.
Step 5: Click on the Recover button.
Once you have decided which files you want to retrieve from your external hard drive, click on the Recover button as seen in the image. You can select multiple files at once so you can recover them simultaneously should you need to.
If you want to, you can also opt to recover all of the data stored on your WD My Passport external hard drive by clicking on the checkbox next to the Name category. This will select all the files in that folder.
Once you have done so, you can click the Recover button on the lower right side of the window to start the recovering process.
Recoverit’s user-friendly interface makes it easy for anyone who suffered from accidental data loss to recover their files. Follow the aforementioned steps and you’ll recover your lost files from your external hard drive in no time.
Final Thoughts
External hard drives can be extremely useful and beneficial, not just for those who need large storage space on the go but also even for average PC users. However, unforeseen things happen, and unexpected data loss may occur.
There’s no need to worry though as there are plenty of ways you can recover lost data on your external hard drive. One of the most popular solutions available these days is using hard drive data recovery software to retrieve lost data.
Among all of the available software in the market, nothing quite beats the performance and ease of use of Recoverit. With its simple and easy to understand interface, even those who aren’t as tech-savvy can have a chance to recover their lost data.
While it does require you to pay for a subscription plan, it’s a worthwhile investment, especially if you keep a lot of precious and valuable data on your external hard drive.