Hello,
I'm trying to help someone who has to unlock a WD external HDD :
https://www.leboncoin.fr/vi/1386164926.htmI'm not sure if it's the exact model shown on the picture, but similarly, there's a key to type in order to unlock the drive, and it disconnects after 5 failed attempts.
That person had the key (about 10 characters long) stored in a text file on another HDD, which failed (if I understood the situation correctly, the external HDD was the backup – Murphy's Law in full effect...). The failed HDD was brought to a data recovery company in Paris : they said that it required a head swap, the whole process costing upward of 700€ (and still 200€ in case nothing could be recovered !
Is it standard practice in the business ?). And that same DR company declines the request of trying to unlock the locked HDD, for legal reasons.
I read this subject and a couple others regarding similar issues (
here, [http://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=34093]here[/url]), but I'm kinda confused so far. Could someone sum up if this can be done by a user with no access to expensive hardware or software, and what are the
known working methods ? I'm not in the same area so I could only provide remote assistance. (Since the key was in a text file and probably copy-pasted each time that HDD was connected, I suggested scanning the whole system partition using something like WinHex with at least three known consecutive characters, in case it could have been stored in a system file / temporary file and still be there somewhere, but it's a long shot.)
@ Roberto : How much would you ask from a private user to apply your decryption tool, and would it work in this case, for (I believe) a WD Elements HDD ? (The prices on page one have been $*** erased.)
Thanks.