Help with recovering files from Western Digital Caviar 80 gb

[Tekedon]

Hi,

I'm new here.. I'm having problems with an old WD Caviar 80gb harddrive. It crashed a number of years ago. I'm starting to believe something is physically broken in the harddrive.. maybe the arm is stuck.. because I don't hear any clicking noises when shaking it.. I read you're supposed to hear something when doing that... It is located/found in the BIOS and in windows.. and windows says it's working correctly.. but it isn't accessible.. and data recovery tools can't access it..
What steps would I be able to do to try and fix it?
I've tried heating it in the oven (don't laugh).. I read that it MAY fix it in some cases.. but no... I also read something about sticking it in the freezer for a while.. haven't tried that... I've tried opening it but I don't have a screwdriver small enough.. and I don't want to bend it open...
so if anyone has any good ideas I'm grateful.. had some important files on that drive.

[labtech]

Honestly, I think professional help would be best in this case. What is your budget?

[Tekedon]

Well, very little..How much could these things go for?

[hddguy]

I've tried heating it in the oven ...

I also read something about sticking it in the freezer for a while....

I've tried opening it but I don't have a screwdriver small enough..

You are sure to make matters worse...

so if anyone has any good ideas I'm grateful.. had some important files on that drive.

Evaluate just how important the files are to you.

I am 99% sure that if this is a physical problem you will not recover your data without pro intervention....

If budget is tight you should place the HDD in a safe place until you have enough money to increase the budget and get this looked at professionally and accurately.

[Vulcan]

@Tekedon,

In addition to the good advice you have been given so far, here are a couple of comments...

I don't hear any clicking noises when shaking it.. I read you're supposed to hear something when doing that...

On older drives, without a head latch, it is normal for there to be no rattle / clicking when a drive is shaken (which is not a usual test, by the way) - and I hope you were not being too violent when handling the drive, and the power was off!

It is located/found in the BIOS and in windows..

In the BIOS disk setup screen, what model name & capacity is shown for the disk?

and data recovery tools can't access it..

Depending on exactly what you tried, and exactly what errors you got (you didn't give details of this), then it's likely you've proved this is not a DIY recovery. Further DIY tests may be possible, but would likely just reach the same conclusion. I'm not suggesting that you stress the drive further, but do you remember any clicking noise when trying to access the drive in Windows or other software, or was it just spinning quietly as normal?

[Tekedon]

Depending on exactly what you tried, and exactly what errors you got (you didn't give details of this), then it's likely you've proved this is not a DIY recovery

The disc recovery software didn't give any errors, it just didn't find any files.. it was searching sectors for about half an hour and came up with nothing.

In the BIOS disk setup screen, what model name & capacity is shown for the disk?

WDC80 something.. can't remember exactly.. but the correct name and capacity is shown.. same thing in the device manager.

do you remember any clicking noise when trying to access the drive in Windows or other software, or was it just spinning quietly as normal?

No clicking noises or anything, the drive is just spinning.. I can feel it vibrate when I hold it.. no other sounds.

Oh well.. seems like this drive does need professional help.. thanks for the comments everyone. Was just checking if there is anything that can be tried before I put this drive back to storage..

[Vulcan]

@Tekedon,

Thanks for that info. Your answers are a big surprise.

Depending on exactly what you tried, and exactly what errors you got (you didn't give details of this), then it's likely you've proved this is not a DIY recovery

The disc recovery software didn't give any errors, it just didn't find any files.. it was searching sectors for about half an hour and came up with nothing.

Oh! Your earlier comment of "data recovery tools can't access it" unfortunately sounded more like there were actual errors which prevented the disk being accessed - and now you have clarified that.

From your new information, I see no evidence that the disk is actually unreadable, since you say that there are no error messages from recovery s/w.

It is also good that:

In the BIOS disk setup screen, what model name & capacity is shown for the disk?

[snip] the correct name and capacity is shown..

[/quote]
Note: There is always a risk in any DIY recovery (or even diagnosis) e.g. due to human error when using a hex editor or when handling a disk, or just bad luck. Therefore you have to decide how much risk you want to take in doing any further analysis.

If I was in this situation, I would be manually looking at the disk with a hex editor, to see if I saw "sanity" e.g. look at the MBR (LBA0) - can I read it; does it look correct; same for the first LBA of the first filesystem (probably LBA63); then I'd look into the filesystem as a quick scan for readable text (which exists within executable files, as well as data files). This is to try to explain 2 seemingly contradictory things you are reporting i.e.:

- no errors reported when data recovery s/w tries to read from the disk;
but
- no files being identified by that recovery software.

One possible reason for both those behaviours, would be if the disk/partition was encrypted - but you haven't mentioned that... Depending exactly how Windows reports the disk, another possiility could be that the disk has been overwritten - but you haven't mentioned that either.

IMHO in order to make progress, more detail would be needed about the history of that disk e.g. how was it being used originally; which OS version; was there any encryption; why did you previously describe it as "crashed" - what actually happened around the time when the "problem" was first seen; have the symptoms changed at all, after anything you have tried so far; exactly which different recovery s/w have you tried.

You said before: "windows says it's working correctly.. but it isn't accessible" - what exactly did you mean by "isn't accessible" e.g. error messages reported or something else? How does Windows report the drive letter(s) on that disk in Device Manager e.g. does it report the filesystem type (NTFS or FAT32), or list it as raw, or show no drive letters on that disk at all, or something else; assuming it shows a drive letter(s) on that disk, does it show this as all free space, or as only some free space or something else?

With all those answers, it might help to better define the problem you have - but no guarantees.

If you don't feel comfortable taking the inherent risks of DIY to investigate this yourself, then you'll need help from someone more experienced who has the disk in their hand (e.g. a DR pro), to assist. And please don't try any more "internet fixes" like the heating & cooling. Those might have caused same (further) problems.

[hddguy]

The disc recovery software didn't give any errors, it just didn't find any files.. it was searching sectors for about half an hour and came up with nothing.

....

No clicking noises or anything, the drive is just spinning.. I can feel it vibrate when I hold it.. no other sounds.

I somehow got the impression there was a physical problem.

I guess could still be ATA locked or, more likely, translator is dead. both cases the HDD would show ID but return no data.

You should test the disk with MHDD or Victoria or some similar utility where you can see the status registers of the HDD.

If the problem is completely logical however, then Vulcan has given good advice and you should follow it.

[Vulcan]

@hddguy,

I somehow got the impression there was a physical problem.

So did I, from the original description! However the new information about the lack of error messages, when scanning using (currently unnamed) recovery software, made that seem less likely IMHO.

I guess could still be ATA locked or, more likely, translator is dead. both cases the HDD would show ID but return no data.

I take your point that there could still be other problems with the drive - and I'm certainly not saying that this is just logical corruption, due to the discrepancies in the symptoms that I mentioned earlier in the thread.

I have little experience with WD disks in my (non-DR) position, but with translator problems, would the drive be likely to set ABRT? If so, then the Read would fail, and we'd expect to see error messages, and we don't (according to the OP) - but if the Read may succeed error-free, yet return incorrect or invalid data, then this would still fit with the strange "no errors reported, but no files found" scenario, wouldn't it.

Agree completely about your suggestions for further utilities to try - I was hoping that the OP's answers to my questions might avoid that need, but perhaps not

[hddguy]

with translator problems, would the drive be likely to set ABRT?

Translator error would return IDNF/INF error.

ATA lock would produce ABRT error.

But, unless I misread something here, looks like OP only use windows based recovery software, which may not show IDNF error. Not entirely sure. But hopefully there is enough info here for the OP to decide the next logical step

[Vulcan]

@hddguy - Many thanks for explaining, I appreciate it

My previous experience is that Windows itself would detect IDNF as an error, but as you say, we can't be sure about whatever recovery software the OP has tried and its reporting of problems back to the user (if any!). Yes, let's hope the OP can decide on his next step from the info he has received, and using MHDD/Victoria, he can look for the error register flags that you mentioned. Thanks again

[Tekedon]

IMHO in order to make progress, more detail would be needed about the history of that disk e.g. how was it being used originally; which OS version; was there any encryption; why did you previously describe it as "crashed" - what actually happened around the time when the "problem" was first seen; have the symptoms changed at all, after anything you have tried so far; exactly which different recovery s/w have you tried.

You said before: "windows says it's working correctly.. but it isn't accessible" - what exactly did you mean by "isn't accessible" e.g. error messages reported or something else? How does Windows report the drive letter(s) on that disk in Device Manager e.g. does it report the filesystem type (NTFS or FAT32), or list it as raw, or show no drive letters on that disk at all, or something else; assuming it shows a drive letter(s) on that disk, does it show this as all free space, or as only some free space or something else?

With all those answers, it might help to better define the problem you have - but no guarantees.

Ok, now it's a long time ago sinced it "crashed" so I'll try to write what I remember. The OS on the disc was Windows XP Professional Edition, and it was formatted as NTSF. No encryption that I know of. A couple of days before the harddrive "crashed" I had noticed it was making some strange grinding noises. The crash happened when I was rendering a video project. During the rendering process the computer froze completely, so I restarted it. Then I tried to render again and ofcourse it froze again. But this time it wouldn't go into windows and it said something about not being able to read the drive (can't remember the exact error). And since then it hasn't worked.

What I mean with "not accessible" is that it isn't shown in the list when you open "my computer" or "windows explorer".. It is only found in the "device manager". Can't get any info on it in the device manager though.. No fileformat, partitions etc.. nothing in other words. I think it said that it's unreadable.

[Vulcan]

@Tekedon,

Thanks for all that info - it's very helpful. Unfortunately your description of the original situation is completely consistent with a physical disk problem, which won't be a DIY fix and would need pro help. The part which has been confusing & misleading, has been the lack of reported errors from whatever data recovery software you tried.

I think that hddguy has nailed it - we now have evidence (from the behaviour you saw soon after the original situation) meaning we can't trust that recovery software to have shown any read errors, and that software has misled us to wonder whether such errors were actually occurring.

You could follow the suggestions of using other low-level utilities which hddguy kindly suggested, to confirm that the disk is reporting some / most / all sectors as unreadable (we don't currently know that proportion). The results of my previous suggested tests using a hex editor, could also confirm whether those sectors were readable or not, though without the register-level detail of the low-level utilities.

Sorry for the bad news