Recently my external hard drive (500 gb My Passport Essential by Western Digital) was dropped onto the floor, and it began acting funny… When I plug it into the computer, it makes a clicking noise a few times, then Windows gives the alert sound that a USB device has been plugged in. I cannot see the device in “My Computer”, however, when I open up disk management, I see the hard drive listed as “Disk 1- Unknown – Not initialized”. I know this means I need to assign it a drive letter, but it also means I need to “initialize” it. Will this mean deleting all of the ever so important data that is on it? I realize that my drive is dying soon, and if I do get it to read again, backing up is the main priority. I haven’t much experience with these external hard drives, as this is my first time owning one. I appreciate any help given.
By the way I am on a Windows Vista operating system
