Retrieve data from corrupted WD external drive

General File Recovery

If you stop using the disk it's possible to recover deleted files that have not been overwritten by using recovery software such as MAC Data Recovery, Data Rescue II, File Salvage or TechTool Pro. Each of the preceding come on a bootable CD to enable usage without risk of writing more data to the disk. Two free alternatives are Disk Drill and Cisdem DataRecovery. Recovery software usually provides trial versions that enable you to determine if the software would help before actually paying for it. Beyond this or if the drive has completely failed, then you would need to send the drive to a recovery service like Drive Savers, which is very expensive.

The longer the hard drive remains in use and data are written to it, the greater the risk your deleted files will be overwritten.

Also, visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on Data Recovery.

Free trials only indicate if files can be recovered. But you must then buy the software to actual recover them.

By that I meant the drive should be shut off, so you need to shut down your computer. As long as you use the computer with that drive files are being written to the drive resulting in possibly over-writing the data you want to recover. The longer you continue using the drive the lower is the probability of recovering your files.

Recovery software comes on bootable DVDs or CDs so you don't need to worry about the drive when it's enabled. The OS on the DVD/CD will not cause anything to be written to the disk drive thus protecting the data from accidental overwrites.

Yes. You will be booting from the DVD that has the recovery software.