WD My Book Essential 2TB woes.

[Alexii]

Heya all. Got a 2 TB My Book essential with 1 head wonky. It can read but barely. The drive IDs , installs its drivers , even shows the file and folder structure. But in an attempt to copy off info after giving 1 - 2 files it will hang busy and just dismount on a normal PC. The clients provided another 2TB my Book Essential with a bit different controller PCB ( both USB3 models ). I took the 2 TB from donor enclosure , took the 2TB from patient and imaged the patient to donor using DDI ( with the help of a configuration drive wich did not want to hold config data properly =(( ) Anycase. After torturing the drive for a week i am down to 3k UNCs on the distance of 0 - 40 %. After ~ 30 percent there is no data ( all zeros ) So today i finally connect the destination drive to patients controller only to see that it fails to install them drivers. My Book shows up in R-Studio with correct capacity but attempts at scan show Media is write protected. The same destination drive in with donor controller loads up the drivers and gives surface access no problem , but R studio sees only encoded garbage data. The Patient controller with the patient HDD still at the same spot , IDs , gives File and folder structure and dies trying to copy it off.

The question. How come my patient controller with the donor/destination drive in it fail to work with only 3k UNC during the imaging. Does the controller on those USB 3 flag the serial number of the drive maybe ?

Drives are both Sadle g6

[drc]

You did not image after 40%?

[hddguy]

I would guess maybe USB bridge is slightly different. Can you verify signatures on both disks? Other problem could be that sector with decryption key was not properly cloned, maybe is one of the 3k UNC errors?

Key should be at the end of the disk, maybe cloning in reverse would help? Maybe you already have tried?

[Alexii]

Ic ic ic =)) I did not clone after 40 percent... I did however hop around there with a skip of a mil sectors... Looked like it was all empty... Ty gents , ill image from the back some 10 percent =) Hopefully the decryption key will be there. And if not , well, then ill image the drive fully ( but it will take patter part of this year =) ).
Btw did anyone had the issue when configuration drive does not hold the config and the imaging after power down has to be restarted ?

[drc]

(Number of sectors on the device when plugged in over SATA) minus (number of sectors on the device when plugged in through USB) will probably help understand what is going on

[harddrivespecialist]

Ic ic ic =)) I did not clone after 40 percent...

Alexii, you need some spanking...

[Alexii]

Hmm as i recall when plugged VIA USB and i ran HDDscan on it , it barked at the default value for maximum LBA , along the line of "incorrect value"...

[Alexii]

Ic ic ic =)) I did not clone after 40 percent...

Alexii, you need some spanking...

Noooooo =))) Well , i claim ignorance as my defense =)) I did not know that key for the encryption is stored at the end =)) I do now =)

[drc]

Hmm as i recall when plugged VIA USB and i ran HDDscan on it , it barked at the default value for maximum LBA , along the line of "incorrect value"...

Look with Winhex

[Alexii]

will do.

[Alexii]

Confirmed encoding key at the end of the drive. Ty all. To be on the safe side ill image a few percent and if it works - ill report here.

[Alexii]

the key is very small recovery worked like a charm =) Its not exactly at the very very end but a few sectors away from 100 percent =) Ty again all.