Recovering a WD External Drive

[Rasilun]

I've had to recover data on several occasions but this HD is really giving me trouble.

500 GB External SATA WD HD - model #: WD5000AAKS

I got a call from a client today telling me that when he goes in to browse the documents on his external HD it asks him to format and is slow and won't let him do much. Sounded like some bad sectors so I did a pickup knowing that a complete recovery would take a little time. Or repair... whatever.

First thing I did was just plug it in to see what happened. Neither lab computer recognized it off the bat via plug and play.

Took the drive out and hooked it up to the computer via USB and power source adapter.

Device Manager sees it as USB Mass Storage Device but it's not listed in explorer or Disk Management.

Western Digital Data LifeGuard Diagnostics sees it hooked up but cannot get the details on the drive. No serial number, Model number, can't see the capacity and says SMART status is "Not Available".

Neither Active File Recovery nor GetData NTFS can get the details on the drive but they see it as USB Disk. The status is "Not Ready".

Ubuntu also sees it as a USB Drive but when attempting to open it I get "unable to mount location - can't mount file"

When putting the drive directly into a computer BIOS cannot see it at all.

Any suggestions on getting this thing to a working level or at least a format level?

Thanks in advance everyone.

I'm scanning with Partition Find and Mount right now. Not sure it's going to give me what I want though. I should also add that yes, the drive is winding up fine. Or at least sounds fine.

I guess what I'm asking is: does this sound like a hardware level problem? Believe it or not, that I have not encountered in 8 years.

 

[MrUnknown]

It sounds too far gone for logical recovery, so it is probably physical damage. Will have to send it out.

 

[Larry Sabo]

I've had three WD MyBook external drives this past few weeks with similar symptoms and was unable to salvage any useful data. Couldn't find a replacement controller board to try that, but if anyone knows of a source, please let me know. One PC Solution doesn't have them and couldn't help. In the one case I was able to detect the drive okay, a sector clone was going nowhere, so I eventually just tried recovery with GetDataBack, without any significant success.

 

[PC Problems]

This definately sounds like a PCB board failure.

 

[Rasilun]

Thanks for the help everyone.

It's a little to risky for me to try and swap the PCB Board. I've read to much on compatibility issues even on the same model and firmware. Don't think I want to go down that road. I'm going to try the ol overnight freezer method and than refer him to a specialist with a clean room. Thanks again.

 

[mkeathley]

Freezer trick works best with click of death drives.

Also call driversavers, today. register as a partner with them. Get your code from them
The offer a free diag service. They will even pay shipping, you ship the drive off to them for the customers, and they provide a estimate on what it will cost to recover the data if they can. and trust me they can. But it does cost a good chunk of change.

But remember to register with them first. Because then using your code your customer get 10% off, and you get 10% commision This could be $50-500 in cash for you and in savings for the customer as well. Its a win-win

 

[Rasilun]

Freezer trick works best with click of death drives.

Also call driversavers, today. register as a partner with them. Get your code from them
The offer a free diag service. They will even pay shipping, you ship the drive off to them for the customers, and they provide a estimate on what it will cost to recover the data if they can. and trust me they can. But it does cost a good chunk of change.

But remember to register with them first. Because then using your code your customer get 10% off, and you get 10% commision This could be $50-500 in cash for you and in savings for the customer as well. Its a win-win

Thanks mkeathley! I'm doing it right now.

 

[MobileTechie]

Tools not seeing SMART over a USB interface is pretty common.

Have you tried connecting it directly to the ATA interface? You might have a lot more luck.

I have a toshiba laptop drive in at the moment. Over USB it fails the tosh test on UBCD. It also isn't detected properly by Windows and causes the PC to hangs. Connected via ATA and using Parted Magic disk (linux) I can take all the data off no problems. So sometimes the h/w interface or OS can make a big difference.

 

[MrUnknown]

Thanks for the help everyone.

It's a little to risky for me to try and swap the PCB Board. I've read to much on compatibility issues even on the same model and firmware. Don't think I want to go down that road. I'm going to try the ol overnight freezer method and than refer him to a specialist with a clean room. Thanks again.

Make sure he really doesn't want the data before you do that. Putting a HDD in the freezer can damage it further.

also give Scott a try. MyHardDriveDied.com usually a lot cheaper and he knows what he is doing.

 

[Skyhooker]

Thanks for the help everyone.

It's a little to risky for me to try and swap the PCB Board. I've read to much on compatibility issues even on the same model and firmware. Don't think I want to go down that road. I'm going to try the ol overnight freezer method and than refer him to a specialist with a clean room. Thanks again.

You might also give these guys a try - they match PCBs to the drive: www.onepcbsolution.com

 

[Larry Sabo]

It's a WD drive and Onepcbsolution don't carry controllers for and won't fix a WD drive, they told me.

 

[Skyhooker]

It's a WD drive and Onepcbsolution don't carry controllers for and won't fix a WD drive, they told me.

Ah, OK. In that case, from all I've heard of his work, I second the previous post recommending Scott Moulton.

Good luck!

 

[RegEdit]

Firmware module corruption is becoming more and more common too. That takes a $10,000 piece of hardware to repair.

 

[leon2046]

Hard drive failures are not always cased by circuit board. This site has lots of western digital pcb for sale. hddzone.com

I received a wd board today and have already changed out the bios. All my stuff came up and I'm back in business.

 

[johnrobert]

When I needed a board I bought the identical drive from Ebay for a few $
swaped and got all data

 

[leon2046]

The board cost me $39($1 discount code) with free shipping on hddzone.com

The most important is all my data back. but thank you all the same.

 

[kellycomputerservices]

Make sure he really doesn't want the data before you do that. Putting a HDD in the freezer can damage it further.

also give Scott a try. MyHardDriveDied.com usually a lot cheaper and he knows what he is doing.

If you ever have to resort to the HDD freezer trick...I know this sounds ridiculous but it does seems to work very well for me.

Get two gel ice packs that are frozen. Make sure you don't just use ice as it will condensate too quickly. Put one on top, one on bottom...but first, layer a hand towel or wash cloth in between the drive and the ice packs to prevent moisture affecting the drive.

This method seems to allow the hard drive to remain at a lower temperature, but longer, enough to further investigate the damaged drive.