I have had 4 of the Fantom brand USB drives fail on me. In every case, I was able to remove the drive and either plug it directly into the IDE bus or a known good USB enclosure. I ended up just getting some new USB enclosures, and I was back in business with no recovery needed. They just worked with all data intact. I don't know if it will be the same for the WD, but if your not sending it in for warranty, its probably your best bet.
Good Luck!
I plugged it in directly in a PC test system (Thank you Project Framed!) and the PC BIOS don't see the drive at all. Maybe if she wants I can find a company that removes the platters and pulls the data off that way?
WH1T3 0U7
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Modified Thermaltake View 37
Intel 9900K, MSI Z390A, 128GB (32GB x4) GSkill Royal 3200MHz, RTX 3080 Vision, EVGA Nu Audio, 1TB Silicon Power SSD, EVGA 1300G2, ID cooling 360mm AiO, LG 3440 x 1440
UPDATE!
I plugged a working HD into the same test system and it didn't "see" that drive either(???)
So assuming the motherboard is crap I plugged my drive into FRAMED and it worked! Then I told my friend about how my hard drive wasn't recognized at first too and that I need to retest her hard drive in FRAMED. I plugged it in last night and it worked too!! She's obviously ecstatic. I made a copy of the 50GB of data for her and I'll be giving her the hard drive tomorrow. Since the drive still works, I'll tell her that she just needs to buy a new enclosure.
I guess there's some kind of over-current device in that original enclosure that allows it to take a power surge and still save the drive inside?
WH1T3 0U7
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Modified Thermaltake View 37
Intel 9900K, MSI Z390A, 128GB (32GB x4) GSkill Royal 3200MHz, RTX 3080 Vision, EVGA Nu Audio, 1TB Silicon Power SSD, EVGA 1300G2, ID cooling 360mm AiO, LG 3440 x 1440