WD5000D032 MyBook Premium Edition (WD5000AAKS internal)

[Thebster]

So I have a WD MyBook WD5000D032 external drive which had intermittent problems before becoming unusable. After trying to run a number of recovery programs, I decided to remove the disk drive from its case and try accessing it as an internal drive (its model type is WD5000AAKS), but found that the same problems persisted.

It doesn't show up in Disk Management at all, but in the Device Manager it has the following properties:

Additionally, it registers as having 2TB of capacity instead of 500GB as it should, and its S/N shows up as WDC-ROM SN# XYZ----

GetDataBack is ineffectual, so I decided to see if SpinRite or HDD Regenerator will help. However, HDD Regenerator seems as though it will literally take ages to finish, and I'm not even sure if it's working at all based on the following screen:


I can't tell if it detects all the bad sectors first, then tries to recover them, or it recovers them as it detects them, in which case it's not making any difference at all. If it's the latter case, then I'll just cancel it and see how SpinRite does.

Any feedback would be much appreciated, I realize this is probably a lost cause but I'll try to do whatever I can (short of getting professional data recovery, I got a price quote and they wanted $590, ontop of shipping charges).

[shaun]

The quote seems reasonable, when the drive identifies itself with its ROM version it obviously fails to fetch its firmware from the platters. This may range, as I have just discussed when I got a defective 5000AAKS myself, from PCB faults (not simply swappable on those models) over damaged SA to bad heads. Nothing for DIY, and nothing I would try without having practiced on bunches of drives with worthless data. My skills are limited to head swap on easier models maybe up to 80..120GB, platter swapping, and electronics repair and therefore I keep my hands away from thos high-capacity drives for now.

[BlackST]

The drive is in a sort of "emergency mode" (ROM TORNADO instead of the model), the problem can be solved by a professional with proper gear.
STOP using software that can make further damage.
The quote is honest but keep in mind that they can find something worst so it may vary (I would see the drive physically before making quote).

[Thebster]

As I said, I'm not willing to spend that kind of money to recover the data, so I'm trying to find any means possible on my own. Although it's sounding like that's not really possible.

[HDD Spaz]

firmware error.

If your not willing to spend money to get it fixed you might aswell throw it in the trash. The quote you have got is excellent. You will not be able to do this yourself.

[BlackST]

No. It's not possible to do it yourself.

[Thebster]

Well, SpinRite didn't go so well. No matter what setting I ran it under, while it was trying to find Mass Storage Devices it would fail with a Division Overflow Error, so it's looking like that's not going to work.

I came across a recovery guide http://mybookworld.wikidot.com/rescue-procedure that looks fairly thorough, do you guys think even with the steps taken in that that I have no chances? haha.

[BlackST]

There are also a lot of bull...er...things, when you have destroyed data and drive, let us know. So long, then, and refer to them for everything.

[drc]

That quote is pretty cheap compared to anything else you'll run into.

And no, there's no way for you to do this yourself. The drive is essentially not successfully communicating with the platters. There is nothing anyone can do until that problem is fixed.

[Thebster]

Yeah, I read a pretty good description at http://datacent.com/datarecovery/hdd/we ... tal/WD5000

All Western Digital hard drives are also well-known for their firmware problems.
Firmware of the drive is not located on the logic board as most people think. Main part of firmware is stored on the platters in so-called Service Area. Service Area occupies the negative cylinders of the surface and contains a number of firmware modules. If one of the modules gets corrupted the hard drive fails to initialize correctly and stops working making the data inaccessible. In such case the drive usually spins up fine, it doesn't click but has one of the following symptoms:

* it is not found in BIOS at all
* identifies with its factory alias(for example WDC ROM MODEL-MAMMOTH---,WDC ROM MODEL-HAWK---),
* shows up with wrong S/N (for example WDC-ROM SN# XYZ---) or capacity,
* identifies fine but fails to read any data or boot up operating system giving I/O device errors whenever you try to access LBA sectors.

If you attempt to boot up from such drive or read any data from it you would get "Primary Master Hard Disk Fail" or "No operating system found" or "USB Device malfunctioned" error or "S.M.A.R.T. Capable But Command Failed" or "Disk boot failure. Insert system disk and press enter", "Hard drive not recognized", "Drive Mount Failure" or some other hard drive boot error.

At the moment it is not possible to fix this kind of problem at home. It is quite a complicated job and requires use of specialized expensive equipment and deep knowledge of hard drive design and data recovery technology to repair the firmware. Luckily, it is not usually necessary to open the HDD in clean room and order donor drives, so chances of successful data retrieval are close to 100%.

I guess I'm gonna have to give up on fixing this. I wasn't doubting your guys' expertise, I was just trying to exhaust every option is all. There wasn't really any critical data so regardless I can't really justify that kind of expense, even if it is a decent deal. Thanks for your help and time though!

[beto]

Like another´s guru´s tolds u looks like SA problem´s so its no possibe DIY, because the hdd its aborting all operations, so its not possible to access, to read any sector´s by that reason, HDD regen, and all software u tried its getting by answer ABRT.

Regards