Disk Initialization and Allocation

Turns out I didn't have all my data backed up on my external HD ( don't need the lecture), that stopped functioning.
I have removed the drive from the housing. A disk check from the WD software sees the disk, sees the size and a check passes.
Windows explorer does not see it.
Windows disk management states it as not initialized and not allocated. This is identical to a new disk which I just installed which I then initialized and allocated as a simple partition which did not require formatting.
What happens to the disk I removed from my external if I now initialize it and allocate it as a simple partition? Does this wipe the disk by default? Might I be able to recover the data if I do this?
The drive is spinning with no clicking or scraping sounds.
Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

Don't do it. INstead,try free utility TestDisk at:
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

Thanks Andrew.

I will pick up a SATA to USB adapter later today and give this a try tomorrow.

Depending on the size of the disk, how it was originally formatted, etc. I'd say at a minimum the MBR and/or partition tables have been corrupted. That's probably why Windows isn't seeing it but the WD tool is. If the hardware is alive and communicating with the computer at a low level, it may be fine once recovered. But once the underlying structures or the filesystem is corrupted or damaged, Windows still won't be able to access it without repair.

I haven't used it, but from reading the overview TestDisk looks like a useful tool to see whether the partition tables were lost. If so perhaps the tool can recover. If you do this, there's some chance the data on the disk will automagically reappear, but I'd guess it's not likely. More likely you'll have to run a full disk file recovery scan of some sort. These are often not 100% effective but might get back most stuff. If the recovery takes much more effort than this it may require a recovery specialist service.

Assuming you do recover the disk contents, immediately back it up using a trustworthy backup approach (3 separate copies, etc.), and then do a full format of the problem disk. It may be still reliable but once a bunch of recovery operations have been run on it there's no telling if it's really in a stable state, or somewhat fragile. A full format would wipe & clear everything, plus map out any problem sectors and so on. Also check the SMART statistics and see if there were any underlying signs of hardware problems like massive counts of bad sectors, or read retries. That's the way I'd continue to use a disk after the recovery of its data from something like this. At any sign of continued issues I'd retire the disk and replace it; not worth the risk.

I know you said you don't need the lecture, so I'll leave it at that.

Royce:

A) Thanks for the low level lecture

B) It was a WD Essentials 3 TB external. The drive itself is a WD Caviar Green (doomed from birth).

C) First time I used it I simply formatted it NTFS in Windows 7 before I ever used it.

I'm running a bunch of WD 3TB's Green. They're okay, not stupendous performers of course. But I'm using them as internals in my workstation, or in external cooled cases. I don't really recommend the "MyBook" packaged externals any more; I've seen too many failures of the case, power supply, controller, plus overheating due to lack of cooling, etc. Doesn't sound like any of those may have hit you; if the partition tables were corrupted but the hardware is okay something may simply have glitched. Still not a bad idea to replace the case and keep the mechanism, if the drive itself is fine and you keep running it.

Since you've got a 3TB NTFS filesystem in a single partition, you won't have the old style MBR (Master Boot Record) partition structure. Instead it will be GPT (Guid Partition Table), which is the only way to do single volumes greater than 2TB. Unlike MBR, the GPT structure is backed up on the disk, so if the primary GPT partition info is lost it's at least possible to recover it from the secondary table.

That's the technical underpinnings, it doesn't matter to us most of the time. But it does matter to recovery tools. It looks like TestDisk supports GPT partition recovery, so that's good. Looks like the tool also supports some type of file recovery scan. Though the way they refer to it as "deleted file recovery" I'm not sure if it's a super thorough scan that would work well in the case of a corrupted filesystem. But maybe you won't need to scan for recoverable files. If the tool is able to repair the partition table in the GPT records, it might be that the filesystem structure itself is still intact, in which case your folders & files will reappear.

One other thing to be aware of. Attempting to run recovery operations like this will make low-level alterations to the info structure on disk. There's always a chance a mistake or mis-applied fix will make things worse instead of better. So proceed with care and try to make sure of what you're doing at each stage, before writing changes to disk. In the old days when I rarely needed to try recoveries like this, I would first run a raw sector-level duplication and try the recovery on the duplicate first. That's not necessarily a great option for you here, but is something you may want to think about depending on how bad you need the data back.

I you want to go that way you can get yourself either R-Drive or R-Studio software.
Both allow you to take images of whole drives (RAW) and then you can do recovery work on image instead of live drive.

Since this is your backup you may be better off by just buying new HD and doing new backup than spending extra
money on software, and time on whole process-unless you're bored to death.