WD live.

[Midget]

Recently while setting up my new PC I decided to open up both of my external HDDs and make them internal. The first worked like a treat and loaded straight up. The 2nd however says that it isn't formatted the moment I plug it in. I've just found out that my automatic backup wasn't working so I need to try and recover the drive. I ran a few recovery programs but they all seem to find about 500gb of .gpg files (It originally had about 2500gb of files). Which I've found out is a excryption that WD uses on this type of drive.

So what are my options for getting the data back? Putting it back in the external shell doesn't work as it seems the drive won't even sync with a PC anymore when used as a external. Used as a internal it shows up as a 3tb drive as it should but says it's unformatted.

I'm thinking the next step would be to find a program to try and format the drive without touching the data but I'm hesitent to try something like that until I've thought of everything.

[hddguy]

put it back to the enclosure, run some recovery software and check if your files are still there.

[northwind]

Putting it back in the external shell doesn't work as it seems the drive won't even sync with a PC anymore when used as a external.

What exactly do you mean it doesn't sync?
What changed between the time that it worked as an external (ie. before you opened up the case) and now?

I'm thinking the next step would be to find a program to try and format the drive without touching the data but I'm hesitent to try something like that until I've thought of everything.

That would be a terrible idea. If you do this, then you might end up with no data at all. And if not, your data will still be encrypted.

The only way for you to recover the data is if you plug it as external using the original (or another identical) usb to sata bridge (ie. the original external USB caddy). Then copy your data off to some other device, format that 3TB and connect it internally. Then copy data back to their place. Make sure your copies are good before you do any copying back and forth.

[hddguy]

Putting it back in the external shell doesn't work as it seems the drive won't even sync with a PC anymore when used as a external.

What exactly do you mean it doesn't sync?
What changed between the time that it worked as an external (ie. before you opened up the case) and now?

My guess is his windows OS has placed a blank MBR at sector 0, probably he initialised (but not formatted) it when prompted.

[Midget]

put it back to the enclosure, run some recovery software and check if your files are still there.

I can't get the drive to show up even in partition management anymore so I don't believe I can run the recovery with it as a external.

Yeah when I got prompted to initialize the drive I have done so. Which looking back in hindsight was a mistake. I would appreciate any insight of how to solve the issue though.

[hddguy]

The decryption key is stored a the end of the disk and shouldnt be affected. Assuming you place the HDD back into its native enclosure you should be able to make a software recovery.

But at any point if you are not sure and data is important, it is a relatively straightforward job for a pro.