WD My Book Won't turn on, Disk 1 unknown, Not Initialized and Unallocated
 

https://community.spiceworks.com/top...do-i-access-th...

I'm going through a similar issue like this above thread

MY WD My Book is not turning on anymore, i have successfully removed the drive out of the enclosure, Purchased SATA to USB Connector and connected the drive to Windows 8.1, The drive Shows up on the Disk Management but as "Not Initialized"

https://github.com/themaddoctor/linu...in%20linux.pdf

As per the above thread and GitHub documentation, i can see my chip is JMicron JMS538S

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLsqwIkb1l4

Can anyone can confirm that

1. Whether this methods will work if linux is used via oracle VM ?
2. Which distro i should use ?
3. Does Linux detect External HDD's while its connected via VM on windows PC Host ?

Thank you.

Welcome to LQ, Aru7.
I would suggest that you give us all the info we may need to try and help you rather than asking us to search 3 different websites for it.

How old is it? I guess it is died. From the other hand VMs usually have no direct access to the hardware.
(and yes, would be better to give us more details - like what was in it, was it encrypted, what did you really try to recover...)

By Oracle VM I assume you mean Virtualbox. Yes, it can detect USB drives and suggest installing the extension pack and guest additions to make things easier.

I have not watched the videos so I don't know what methods are mentioned. If the drive is working and it appears to be it should be recognized if connected to the VM. Running alive version might be easier.

How old is your Western Digital My Book?
If it's over 10 years old - then it's likely it has broken down.

Windows is saying it can see a drive is connected to the USB port but it can't read the drive.
It cannot access any files and thinks the disk is unformatted.

I'm guessing what you mean is: can you use a linux distro to access your Windows home directory on your My Book HDD so you can save those files onto a different disk?
You can try. Simply install a live linux OS onto USB.
Boot the linux OS on USB from a computer and then connect your My Book HDD and see if the linux distro can access the Windows files.

The only problem is - if the HDD is not running - then it's a hardware issue.
Simply changing operating systems to access the hardware will not necessarily make the hardware start running again.

MX Linux, Ubuntu and Linux Mint are known to be user friendly.
I recently installed Linux Mint onto USB and it was quite easy.

Yes. But using a VM is a more complicated method than using a live linux usb. IMO.

I forgot to ask if the My Book is a cloud storage device or just an external USB drive. Post the model number.

You can check to see if the HDD spins by holding it in your hand when you plug it in. Can you feel the vibration of the platter spinning up?

Just a quick comment on the fact windows says the drive is unformatted, etc.

Windows will always say that about any drive that is not partitioned and formatted as either ntfs or fat/vfat file system. It does not recognize the file system thus reports it as unformatted.