FUBAR Western Digital hard drive?

juvenal

Hi there,

I have (or had) and iomega 500GB external hard drive. It had an AC power adaptor and connection to laptop was with a standard USB cable.

It had about 250GB of data on it, everything ranging from music and work files (no big deal, mostly replaceable), to our wedding and honeymoon photos (bit of an issue, irreplaceable).:( It was working fine until a couple of weeks ago, and then last week I attempted to use it, only for it to be unrecognised on my system (Windows 7), although when I hooked it up to an old Windows XP machine, the folders were accessible for a couple of minutes before I would get a "Write Failed, data has been lost, please save your work elsewhere etc etc." message.

I used the wonderful FTK Imager from Access Data to recover some of the files, and create images of the folders on my computers hard drive. Despite the tedious progress (80GB in about 6 days), it was working fine, until the other night it simply stopped working, and froze. Now the drive is completely inaccessible, and while I can plug it in and hear the drive spinning for a minute or two, it then stops, and the sound of the drive connecting to windows is heard. I cannot access it through FTK Imager or any of the other host of programmes I've downloaded. In FTK Imager it is recognised as a Physical Drive via USB, although it then says it is an "Unrecognised File System [Unknown Type]".

At best it is recognised as a device, although any attempt to access it if futile. I've tried FTK Imager, DiskDigger, HDTunePro, a WD Lifeguard program and some others that weren't suitable. I've taken the drive out of it's casing (the warranty was expired anyway), and attached it with an eSATA cable, nothing at all.







Normally I'd just dump the drive and be done with it, but as I mentioned our wedding and honeymoon photos are on it, and they are not backed up anywhere else (I know - lesson learned). Is there anything I can do to recover the files or is the drive completely shagged? Even a reformat and trying to recover the files using a rescue program would be an option.

Helpful thoughts, comments or advice would be greatly appreciated. Needless to say Mrs J is pretty upset and I'm not far behind.

Cheers

Capt'n Midnight

last pic says SMART test passed.

is the drive making funny noises ?

last plan
put the drive in a desktop and use ddrescue to photocopy it to an image file and use photorec to pull stuff off the image


if it's been running for 6 days you don't want to be messing around with individual files in case the drive is failing

yeppydeppy

The last time I had to deal with something like this I connected the drive to a pc with ubuntu on it. I was then able to copy the data from the drive having the problems to HD on the ubuntu machine. You can download a bootable version of ubuntu on to a usb key and use it to boot up your current PC. Hope this helps.

juvenal

Thanks for your responses. I should have pointed out that in the last photo it's Drive #2 that is the problem child, drive #1 is the internal hard drive for the laptop.



When it's connected, the drive starts up, and then it goes into a whirr-click routine for a minute or two. The connection sound in Windows plays, and then the drive is silent. Any of the programs or diagnostics I have used to try and access the drive say that it is completely empty, although I think this is an error as it cannot access the drive.

I may try the Ubuntu method. If Windows cannot recognise or access the drive, is there a chance Ubuntu will be able to? Windows 7 recognises that it is an external hard drive and that it is connected via USB, but that's as far as I can go.

Hijpo

juvenal wrote: »

Thanks for your responses. I should have pointed out that in the last photo it's Drive #2 that is the problem child, drive #1 is the internal hard drive for the laptop.



When it's connected, the drive starts up, and then it goes into a whirr-click routine for a minute or two. The connection sound in Windows plays, and then the drive is silent. Any of the programs or diagnostics I have used to try and access the drive say that it is completely empty, although I think this is an error as it cannot access the drive.

I may try the Ubuntu method. If Windows cannot recognise or access the drive, is there a chance Ubuntu will be able to? Windows 7 recognises that it is an external hard drive and that it is connected via USB, but that's as far as I can go.

When you say whirr click, do you mean its a constant whir then one single click cycle? Or is it a normal whirr multiple click as if its accessing data? Could it be that you may have plugged it out while the laptop was still accessing at some point?

juvenal

Hijpo wrote: »

When you say whirr click, do you mean its a constant whir then one single click cycle? Or is it a normal whirr multiple click as if its accessing data? Could it be that you may have plugged it out while the laptop was still accessing at some point?

It sounds like it is accessing data, whirr-click, whirr-click, whirr-click . . . and then it stops after a couple of minutes and the drive is displayed in the device manager. It happened overnight, and I think for some reason the machine may have rebooted itself or frozen, so it's very possible that the malfunction happened as it was accessing data.

I'm guessing (or hoping) that the raw data is still on the drive, it's just in a format that cannot be accessed with the methods or software that I have tried so far.

Capt'n Midnight

does not sound good, I'd treat the next attempt at data recovery as the last chance

yes the data will still be on the platters
but if the drive dies it will cost about €800 to read the data off them

juvenal

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

does not sound good, I'd treat the next attempt at data recovery as the last chance

yes the data will still be on the platters
but if the drive dies it will cost about €800 to read the data off them

Shiite, €800.

I tried the Ubuntu method, it doesn't even recognise that there is a device attached in Ubuntu. In Windows it now lists the device as an 'External Hard Drive'. It says there are no drivers installed for the device, and it is not accessible.

Do I have any other options apart from the €800 one?:(

Capt'n Midnight

the ubuntu method is with the dive OUT of the USB enclosure and connect directly to the SATA / IDE connector on the motherboard


ubuntu may take a while to recognise the drive, did you check in places ?



help.ubuntu.com/community/DataRecovery

sudo apt-get install gddrescue (use a wired network connection to save the hassle of setting up wifi.)

you need space equal in size to the drive

juvenal

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

the ubuntu method is with the dive OUT of the USB enclosure and connect directly to the SATA / IDE connector on the motherboard

ubuntu may take a while to recognise the drive, did you check in places ?

help.ubuntu.com/community/DataRecovery

sudo apt-get install gddrescue (use a wired network connection to save the hassle of setting up wifi.)

you need space equal in size to the drive

I have the drive out of the enclosure, and it's currently connected directly to my Dell Latitude via an eSATA cable. The port is powered, while there is a light at the end of the cable that is connected to the drive, there is no indication in Ubuntu that it is being recognised. Does it have to be connected directly to the motherboard or is the way I have it at present adequate?

I'm not familiar with Ubuntu, so forgive my questions. Where is Places?

**Edit** I should also point out that it's Ubuntu 11.10 that I'm running.

dilallio

I had a similar issue with a seagate drive 2 years ago. Tried everything with no luck.

I then placed the drive in a ziplock bag and placed it in a freezer for an hour.

When I plugged it in via a USB-Sata connector it worked for 6 mins and then died again.

After 2 further attempts I was able to retreive my most important data, but not all of it.

juvenal

dilallio wrote: »

I had a similar issue with a seagate drive 2 years ago. Tried everything with no luck.

I then placed the drive in a ziplock bag and placed it in a freezer for an hour.

When I plugged it in via a USB-Sata connector it worked for 6 mins and then died again.

After 2 further attempts I was able to retreive my most important data, but not all of it.

I've seen some mention of the freezer trick around the place, is it valid or an urban myth?

At this stage I have most of the data off that I want (80GB), there's probably another 5GB or so that I want to get, the rest of the data (around 160GB) is just movies, tv shows etc, that I'm not really worried about. The critical data are the photos of our wedding and honeymoon.

Dey were Sooted

hope you get a result on this - here is a thread i remember from a while back where the freezer route was discussed

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=75080657

Hijpo

dilallio wrote: »

I had a similar issue with a seagate drive 2 years ago. Tried everything with no luck.

I then placed the drive in a ziplock bag and placed it in a freezer for an hour.

When I plugged it in via a USB-Sata connector it worked for 6 mins and then died again.

After 2 further attempts I was able to retreive my most important data, but not all of it.

Theres also the 4" drop but thats only recomended(not really ever recommended) if the drive isnt spinning. But if the drive does stop spinning in the current course of events atleast you have something to fall back on.

juvenal

OK, here's an update.

I froze the drive for about 5 hours, wrapped in three ziploc bags. When I reattached the drive and powered it up, I could hear it spinning and firing up, a lot smoother than it had previously. It was spinning away for about 30-40 seconds, and although still to register in either Windows or Ubuntu. After a minute or two, the drive then stops spinning, as if it's not being used so then it goes to sleep. Ubuntu has not picked up the drive whatsoever, and Windows still recognises it as an external drive storage device. Beyond that it is completely blank, and says there is no driver installed for the device.

As it's recognised as a device by Windows, albeit useless, I also have the option of ejecting and safely removing the hardware before I detach it. Which I do, and Windows plays the little "ta-da" sounds to indicate that it has been ejected. Very odd.

Are we done or is there any more inspiration out there!?

Overheal

juvenal wrote: »

Are we done or is there any more inspiration out there!?

Perish the thought but you can always go to a professional data recovery service. There are times. Wedding photos are one.

juvenal

Overheal wrote: »

Perish the thought but you can always go to a professional data recovery service. There are times. Wedding photos are one.

Indeed, although if there is a possibility of an alternative solution I'd be happy to explore it before engaging the services of a professional data recovery company.

Hijpo

juvenal wrote: »

Overheal wrote: »

Perish the thought but you can always go to a professional data recovery service. There are times. Wedding photos are one.

Indeed, although if there is a possibility of an alternative solution I'd be happy to explore it before engaging the services of a professional data recovery company.

Seen as its looking for a driver have you tried manually installing a driver from the manufacturers website? A recent windows update could have passed on a crappy driver??

Capt'n Midnight

you need to remove the drive from the enclosure and put it directly in the computer




the 4" drop is not recommended ever, stiction is where a drive isn't spinning at all and I've not seen it on a drive in ages and even then gentle tapping would get going, and by gentle I used to put an old 40MB drive on top of a 1GB SCSI , the chugging of the scsi was enough to get the 40MB spinning,

bonzodog2

Before you go down the €800 route, you might consider changing the circuit board for one from an identical drive. Identical in this case means not just the model number, but also revision, firmware, codes etc and pref with mfg date as close as possible to the dodgy one.
The firmware for the processor on the board is on the disk so they need to match.
This presentation is very informative:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kx-D1nJcv0k

juvenal

There doesn't seem to be a driver available for this particular model, not on the WD site anyway.

The hard drive in question is this one: http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=608&lang=en