20 Most Recent Western Digital WD15EADS 1.5 TB SATA Hard Drive Questions & Answers

As long as the platters inside are not shattered to million pieces, there is always a chance to recover the data but more complex and the amount of data needed, the more $$ it will cost you! There are companies and services you can use for data recovery but as mentioned, this is very expensive and typically used as a last resort for irreplaceable data when all other methods failed. Now, even if there was a working operating system (Windows or Linux) installed on this hard drive, it is always better to use this drive connected as a slave drive or connected via firewire/USB docking station. That way, even if the operating system was damaged, as long as the data was not encrypted or the sectors where the data resides on were not damaged, you would still be able to access all data and copy it over to another healthy drive/disk. I am not sure if this is a IDE or SATA type hard drive but there are USB adapters with applicable power connectors to connect pretty much any drive externally to a working system and access it. I use a USB 3.0 based docking station as well as a USB 2.0 based drive adapter which connects to both IDE and SATA 2.5" (laptop) and 3.5" (desktop) type drives and cost around $15. If any of these are too much for you to grasp or do, take it to a computer shop and have them take a look (typically for free) so, if it was indeed a dead drive, you won't have to second guess it or spend more money on it.

Is the drive clicking or making any weird noises? If this is the case, you won't be able to do anything with it unfortunately. It will need to go to a professional data recovery company.

1st, go to your motherboard's website and download the newest firmware for your board. After updating the firmware, you can connect your drive again.
If you have the latest firmware already, you can get a USB enclosure for your drive and convert it into an exteranl drive. It will be slower and you won't be able to boot from it.
If your motherboard is simply uncompatbile, there is not much else you can do. You could buy an inexpensive motherboard, they cost as little as 50$, but you will need new ram and a new processor, etc.

I'LL TELL YOU UPFRONT i HAVE ONLY INSTALLED SATA ON A NEW SYSTEM SO MY ANSWER MAY NOT BE CORRECT IN ALL SITUATIONS
Question is vague. Are you replacing a drive or building a new system? SATA drives have a dedicated plug on the Mother Board. Of course you already know you can't replace an IDE with a SATA without an adapter (Ebay has them for about $8) or the Bios is incompatible. The power is on the Motherboard and does not have a connector from the power supply like an IDE has.

go to a data recovery expert or
hdd repair shop

You should not even try to install an operating system on an external drive. Windows looks at the "C" drive and installs programs to "C" drive. You are trying to put it on the "G" drive. You will have too many problems and wish you never had tried. Buy a larger main drive and partition it with two equal partitions. Then "Dual Boot". You will find how to do this on the internet. Just Google "Dual Booting".

Get TESTDISK and see if it is recognised, if so TestDisk has some tools that may help

If your HARD DRIVE was exposed to a magnetic field, this can happen.
Try a scandisck run.
Boot up in safe mode and run fix disk.

The hard disk is having bad sectors on its first 3000 sectors.the bad sectors are caused by degradation of the platter of the hard disk.OR the factory area of the hard disk has certain files called SMART, G -LIST and other log files.Unless one empties those log files with a good tool , one cant format ones hard disk.

This is likely a couple problems; 1. The hard drive is dying or is dead. You're looking at hardware recovery if this is the case. There are some tools such as Spinrite that might be able to recover the disk. (GRCHard drive data recovery software) 2. The power supply on the computer/laptop is not functioning as well as it used to. Try using another PC to see if there's any difference in results.

Download testdisk and run it to see if it recognised in the list. If so use the intel option to find a boot sector

Remove the drive from the external case it is in and connect directly to your computer - see if the bios recognizes it. If so, the OS will do so also and you can access it. Also means the electronics of the external case are no good. If not recognized in other machine, the hard drive has gone to hard drive heaven and needs to be replaced.