An acquaintance asked me to try to do something with a defective 1TB WD Elements external HDD. I tried plugging it a few times : it consistently starts spinning, then emits 3 clicks then shuts down by itself. The actual HDD inside is a WD10JMVW, with a soldered USB interface. If I remember correctly it happened spontaneously, there was no shock prior to the failure.
1) Is this pattern clearly a sign of defective head(s), meaning that nothing can be done outside of a “clean room” environment ?
2) The owner told me that she managed to have it briefly recognized once (after it first failed), is there a chance that this could happen again, by trying repeatedly ? Is there a risk of causing damage to the platters by doing so ? (From what I've read, there is such a risk when a drive is constantly clicking, this one shuts down after just 3 clicks.)
3) There are 12 pins on the left of the USB port and 2 on the right, what are these for ? Can a TTL adapter be plugged there to get a more conclusive diagnostic ? If yes, on which pins should the wires be connected to, and what freeware software tools are recommended to get a reading, on Windows or Lubuntu ?
4) Would it be worth attempting to convert the PCB to a direct SATA connection ? (Unlikely if the answer to 1) is yes, but I ask anyway for the sake of completeness...)
Thanks.

Recently I had same model wd drive.
This metod working with that usb wd drive PCB Safer than desoldering U12

https://blog.acelaboratory.com/pc-3000- ... drive.html

3 click and spin down probably bad head or media damage. And there is a risk for platter damage.

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Thanks for this reply. Again, is there something that can be done with a TTL adapter, to get a more accurate diagnostic, and how ?
Can someone else confirm that a “3 clicks and spin down” pattern is definitely a tell-tale sign of internal component(s) failure ?

The owner is in south France, is there a known reputable data recovery company nearby, perhaps in northern Spain, with pricings significantly lower than this ?
https://www.appcdata.fr/tarif.php

Again, could someone please explain what these pins are for and what – if anything – can be done with a TTL adapter ?


I found another DR lab in the area (very close actually, I don't know when it was opened), their prices seem suprisingly low : “starting from 250€ all included” for an head-related issue on a standard HDD with no platter damage. Does that seem plausible / legitimate ? What would be “HDA” (I found “head disk assembly” as a possible meaning) and what kind of failure would this encompass ?
http://www.dafotec.fr/toulouse/tarifs-p ... index.html
They claim to have a proprietary technology called “Magnetic Nano Detection”, which supposedly allows to read the platters directly, instead of having to replace the defective components from a donor drive, from what I understand. Again, does that seem plausible / legitimate ? Are there similar technologies currently developped by other DR companies ? Or is this some kind of technobabble and voodoo science ? What kind of question should the owner ask and what kind of reply would be suspicious ?
http://www.dafotec.fr/toulouse/technolo ... index.html

I thought that a TTL adapter could be used to obtain some precise informations from the firmware during the start-up sequence in order to confirm the diagnostic – at this point I don't want to attempt anything more. I'm trying to at least provide some conclusive information to the owner – for no charge since I can't actually recover the data – and possibly learn something in the process.
When I asked, quite a long time ago (gee, more than a year already), about an issue with a long forgotten drive from a long forgotten friend, a 2GB Seagate “Medalist”, you recommended getting a TTL adapter (and several identical drives – I got just one for 12€ + shipping –, and a lot of practice); I didn't follow up (yet – I may revive this thread at some point if/when I can find some extra peace of mind to deal with less urgent matters) as I hadn't a TTL adapter then, and wasn't sure which one to get and from where. Now I've got one.
Quote :

That's what I was hoping to do here, get a reading somehow saying that the issue is definitely related to the heads. And you did not mention advanced softwares like MRT / PC-3000 / SeDiv in that other thread. So is this method possible with some drives only, and not with that particular model, or more recent designs in general ?


The fee won't be for me luckily ! I sure hope I won't need to pay that kind of price for recovery any time soon... But I explained to the owner that at this point there was no significantly cheaper option to get this done right, and that if for example the drive contained valuable pictures taken and collected over a period of 10 years, if she gets everything back which is still likely at that point (I quoted this video), even if she has to save money for 2-3 years for this, it will be akin to having paid a monthly insurance of about two beers or one movie ticket during those years... (And, conversely, although I didn't say it out loud, a collection of pictures which isn't worth that monthly amount was probably not worth taking and collecting in the first place. But I know the feeling... Even though I know that I took perhaps a hundred of pictures really worth taking and keeping, I would still feel bad if I lost the thousands of expendable others. And yet I would still feel pissed if I had to pay 550€ to get them back ! There's a brilliant little novel called L'ironie du sort by the almost forgotten french writer Paul Guimard, where near the end the main character opens a book of pictures and tells the story of the entire family tree of his future wife over a century by describing about a dozen of pictures – that's about all there was then and each one meant a world. Now we're flooded by countless pictures devoid of meaning beyond the split second they were taken, that for the most part noone will care to look at in the future, and yet people are somehow relieved that they have them stored somewhere, as if they felt that any event not thoroughly documented and stored as digital files did not actually happen, and therefore they didn't actually exist.)



That's what I thought, and what I read so far from every reliable source, but how can they advertise it if it's pure unadulterated bull***t ? They have a website, a local phone number, a physical address, it doesn't look like a shady business operating through a post office box, they claim to have large corporations among their clients (“Areva, Vallourec, Eurotunnel, Nec, Eurovia”). If I call them out of curiosity, how could I know for sure if they're serious, without raising a red flag that I'm trying to sort of “investigate” on them ?

this is very funny.
and this is a myth. there are no platter reading machines and there is no way to get data reading direcly on platteres without HSA in the world. there is no way reading platteres like CD or DVD.
according to their magnetic nano tech. , no need ROM info and firmware. how they convert physical block address to LBA. how they build translator. how made head map and how to link plattere data. some files writing on all platteres.


xxxxxxx

HDA = Haed and Disk Assembly, Head Disk Assembly, Hard Disk Assembly.

i agree spildit and hdddonor replies.

in this model WD 10JMVW has 3 times clicking it means heads can't find firmware for booting. this occurs 1. heads totally dead.
2. firmware area damaged on platter.
3. pre amp problem.

sometimes head has very very poor reading , cliking continuasly or clicking 9 _10 times.

@Dananjaya

Thanks for this thorough reply. But again, shouldn't they be sued for spreading such erroneous claims ?



And thanks for this precise explanation, relevant to that particular model.
What are the most likely causes for each of these types of failures, if there was no shock / fall ? Could heat be the culprit ? (I re-read the message where the owner explained how it happened : it was in mid-august, she hadn't used it in quite a long time, and apparently there was this clicking pattern right away, so it's doubtful that it reached a critical temperature at that moment. Strange thing is that she mentioned that is was recognized in Windows device manager – but I just verified : indeed, it does appear as "WD Elements 10A8 USB Device", WinHex detects it as a physical device but can't access it, so it must be just the USB controler.)
I read that on some models the pre-amps were just glued to the actuator arms, and this frail assembly could get broken over time, or due to overheating.



So this does not apply when the "3 clicks and spin down" pattern is observed, and trying again would be futile in this case, right ?



@Spildit

Alright then. Thanks for the detailed explanation.



It may be a bit excessive as many HDDs work for many years without failing and end up being replaced just because they've become obsolete, but yes, any drive can fail any day. Loss and theft can happen too, and then no amount of money can bring the data back. (Sometimes in classified ads I see someone whose HDD or whole computer was lost or stolen with years of critical professional data for which there's no backup, desperately trying to get it back, even going as far as proposing a hefty payment to the thief in exchange...)


In this case it would be akin to opening a restaurant and making outlandish pseudo-scientific claims like “we use an exclusive proprietary technology to process your meal at a molecular level so that it doesn't provoke any fart, we are endorsed by Iggy Pop and Keith Richards”. Even if the meals were good, it would still reek, so to speak, of dishonesty and lack of professionalism.
And data recovery is kind of a niche business, there are just a few companies per region / large geographic area, I don't think there is a lot of competition as there can be in other high-tech related actitivies (I may be wrong on this), so I don't understand the purpose of making fake claims to attract clients, when the level of (genuine) expertise and the cost of (existing) equipments necessary to run such a company is already way beyond what even generalist computer technicians can fully fathom and understand.



I get that, but that kind of false claims must hurt the credibility of the data recovery business in general. Are these so common that bona fide specialists won't bat an eyelid when they see them ? And wouldn't the large corporations they claim they've had as customers know better ? Besides, such corporations, unlike most private individuals faced with a data loss issue, have the financiary means to pay a premium price for a premium service – and they would have the ability to sue big time if their names were used falsely for publicity, so this would be a huge risk to take, even if this is an otherwise legitimate company doing actual advanced data recovery with expensive “clean room” equipments and expensive specialized software tools. I'm trying to understand what the point is. If someone wants to be a crook, there are much easier ways !




I hadn't seen that post yesterday. To be fair those two posts are about 3 years old, and are not enough to prove a lack of competence – although I'll admit that a pseudonym like “rookie59” is kinda suspicious ! But even the most seasoned experts were “rookies” at some point... And even the most seasoned experts still learn new tricks on a regular basis – that's one of the purposes of this very forum actually. I'll humbly admit that I'm currently not knowledgeable enough myself to assess how advanced or basic the issue with that 200GB Seagate drive was in the grand scheme of things. But if I were to undertake a (huge) level of learning and training, and start a DR business 3 years from now, it would be quite disingenuous to point to this thread as a “proof” of a lack of knowledge !

But not all data recovery experts in the world have an account on HDDGuru and contribute regularly. And perhaps many who do have an account do not contribute either, or very rarely. Devil's advocate here... but I'm still curious about the prevalence of such claims and the general attitude of serious experts toward them. If you (general “you” here -- apparently you yourself do not operate a full blown DR business and do not propose “clean room” type of intervention) heard about a business in your immediate area making such claims on their website about their “exclusive process” (making everyone else pass for amateurs from a newbie's point of view), what would be your reaction ?



That's why I asked about “a known reputable data recovery company nearby” in my second post above. I mentioned northern Spain as it would be manageable to bring the drive directly, while going there for holidays for instance.
One of those trusted members you mentioned proposed me (or her) a 400€ price all included (except the extra HDD to return the recovered data, which can be supplied by the customer in the same shipment as the defective one). Seems fair, definitely. Problem is, it's in the UK, I would be wary myself of shipping a hard disk drive containing data valuable enough to justify the cost of an advanced recovery procedure. Then “drHDD” seems to be in Canada, so even further. But that won't be my decision, I'll just pass the info.