Please Help

[spiker_27]

Hi,

I have a WD 1TB MyBook Essential. Recently the device would not power on (no lights, no disk spinning…nothing) I tried multiple power outlets in the house with the same results. So I removed the hard drive from its original WD enclosure and purchased a USB to SATA docking station. The docking station works. It will read a 2.5 Seagate 160 GB laptop hard drive and a 2.5 WD 320 GB Passport. But when I insert the 1TB WD MyBook I can hear/feel the drive spinning, but it does not show up in My Computer or under Disk Management. I have data on the 1TB hard drive that I need to access. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated in order to solve this problem.

Thanks,

-Spiker

[labtech]

Look up MHDD

[loki]

Remember if you try DIY then you accept the risks involved.

The Essentials have hardware encryption on the usb bridge board (JM, Symwave or Initio chip).
Did you set a Wd Smartware password?

Looking from the point that it's not getting power when usb bridge board is connected.
As the drive is out now. If you refit the usb bridge board, then connect power & the usb cable can you feel it spinning up or hear it spinning (easier to test/hear this out off the enclosure)

As you say the hdd spins when connected to the usb-sata adapter then the hdd pcb is ok.
Could possibly be the bridge board is the fault or the PSU?

Have you plugged in any other PSU? if so it could have damaged the usb bridge board.

You can check the PSU with a multimeter to see if it is working.

If it is the usb bridge board that is at fault then you might be lucky & get a replacement from ebay
http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_sacat ... _AvailTo=3

Loki

[laptokowiec]

Connect it directly to SATA.
If there are bad sectors, it could be unreadable via sata2usb bridge.

[spiker_27]

Hi everyone,

Thank you for all your help. Here's the update:

I connected the 1TB WD MyBook essential HDD directly to SATA cable inside my desktop computer. The 1TB does not show up under My Computer BUT it does show up under Disk Management and in the Device Manager. Now it is saying:

You must initialize Disk before logical disk manager can access it
Disk 0

Use the following partition style for the selected disks
MBR (Master Boot Record)
GPD (GUID Partition Table)

Disk 0 - Unknown 931.51GB - Not Initialized
931.51GB Unallocated

Sooo my question is will I lose all the Data on the the 1TB when I initialize the disk...what exactly does this do? And if I do lose the data on the 1TB due to this initialization process, is there a way to recover the lost data once the 1TB is "recognized"?

Thanks again for all your help!

[loki]

Dont initialise the drive!!

That message you saw is normal as you have connected directly via sata.
As i said before the data on the drive is encrypted (including the mbr etc) via the usb bridge board as it is written to the hdd platters.
To get access to the readable data the or a matching usb bridge board must be connected to the hdd & used.

Have you tested & confirmed that the psu is working ok?
Have you tried plugging in a different psu? If so that might of damaged the usb bridge board as the voltage & ampage could be wrong.

As i said before if its the usb bridge board that is faulty then you could be lucky in getting a matching one off ebay.
If its the psu that is faulty then again look on ebay.

If you feel out of your depth & the data is important to you then seek a dr pro.

Loki

[spiker_27]

Hi Loki,

Thanks for all your help! I don't have a multimeter to test the PSU, but I never tried to swap the original out with a replacement. So I think that would eliminate the possibility of supplying too much power to the USB bridge board. I put everything back together with the HDD out of its enclosure and still no dice (no power, no disk spinning)

Next I ran TestDisk and it was able to “see” the HDD, but while running the scan I got an Invalid FAT Boot Sector Error. After the scan completed it said something like:

Boot Sector Bad
Back Up Boot Sector Bad

I created a partition using the TestDisk program and once the computer finished restarting the HDD showed up as drive E: (Local Drive)

But there were sections of the 1TB that were still unallocated (the beginning and the end. The drive E: partition is in the middle)

Sooo, I tried to run r-studio data recovery software and came up with this:

Empty Space – 426.17gb
Drive E: 341.38gb RAW
Empty Space – 127.96gb

I have no idea how the HDD went from and NTFS to RAW, but I'm thinking it has something to do with the hardware encryption on the WD HDD. I then tried to run TestDisk PhotoRec and the program was able to "recover" about 18gb of data but it's all encrypted (the files are JSP and GPG) so I can't really tell what it is.

Is this turning into a lost cause? It seems as if the HDD "dead" and there is no way to recover what's on the drive. Is it worth it to try and do a PCB swap? I think that that would be my only option now since even the "recovered data" is coming back encrypted. OR should I just cut my losses and move on with my life?

Thanks for your time and advice

[poehere]

Excellent advise was given to you and you did not take it. Now you have a mess on your hands and your DIY failed. You have ran a program that should never of been run. You should of gotten another box or tried to fix the one that was bad. Like you were told this drive needed to have the box it was in becasue it was encrypted from there and this box would of read your data for you. Good luck but I think now you have really messed this up. You might get lucky if you try and locate a new box or fix the one that is broken. If not seek some professinal help on this one.

[loki]

Ohhh dear you have turned a simple DIY fix that would of cost £30 or less in to a mess
These are the risks of what can happen when you try DIY & blindly try random fixes without knowning what your doing. By doing this you put your data at risk

Newbies in general seem to come to this great forum wanting free fixes & dont like it when members say things like "If you accept the risks involved with DIY" or "go & seek a dr pro" as they seem to think that they are being talked down too. This is not the case, the reason they are told this is beacause as members we are more concerned about the most successful way for them to recover their data.

The fault you have is that power isnt getting to the hard drive when its connected to the usb bridge board due to either a faulty PSU or usb bridge board.
As stated numerious times before your data is encrypted via the usb bridge board on the fly & then that encrypted data is then written to the platters. This is why testdisk did not see a boot sector etc as it would have been encrypted & looked like jiberish. Also running R-Studios at the moment will also be worthless until you correctly diagnoise the fault & fix it. Once the drive is running whilst connected to the usb bridge board then you might need to run R-Studio due to the changes that you made using testdisk.

If you feel out of your depth & the data is important to you then seek a dr pro dont put your data at more risk.


Loki

[spiker_27]

I beg your pardon, but I don't understand why some people get all butt-hurt about other people making an honest mistake. I take full responsibility for my mistake...yes I am a newbie, yes I've never done this before, yes I don't know a whole lot about computers (and by the way, I never felt like I was being talked down to, I appreciated all information that I received)...BUT I'm willing to learn, and I take full responsibility for errors that occur along the way. It is not your business to criticize the choices that I have made during this process of DIY data recovery, and if you would reflect own your own learning experiences you will see that you learned the most from your mistakes! I have learned a great deal so far, and if in the end I can recover my data from the disk great, but if not I can walk away knowing much more about hard drives and data recovery than when I started.

Loki...thank you for your help...I readily admit that I might have messed this up just a bit, but I'm not worried about it...yes my data is important to me, but if I can't recover it my life will still go on!

Now, I've never connected the PCB to another PSU so I doubt that "over-voltage" would be an issue. My next steps are to test the original Power Supply and if it is not working I will order another Power Supply. Then once the power supply is determined to be working I will test to see if the PCB is the damaged part. If the power supply is good and the PCB is good I would like to think that I'll be able to access my data again. But if the PCB is bad though, I'm thinking the next step would be to replace the PCB board by finding an identical one to replace it with....So that's my plan of action...

[SAjunky]

I beg your pardon, but I don't understand why some people get all butt-hurt about other people making an honest mistake.

They get hurt if they don't make money. But they are happy if you fail. In this case they failed to inform you to clone drive first and make attempts of recovery on the clone, not original. So it is is not your fault. But on the beginning you got good advice from loki.

[loki]

I beg your pardon, but I don't understand why some people get all butt-hurt about other people making an honest mistake.

They get hurt if they don't make money. But they are happy if you fail. In this case they failed to inform you to clone drive first and make attempts of recovery on the clone, not original. So it is is not your fault. But on the beginning you got good advice from loki.

SAjunky you seem to treat all data recovery professionals with contempt? Have you had a bad experience in the past? If so you cant lable everyone else by your experience had from one company?

If you really believe "They get hurt if they don't make money. But they are happy if you fail" then why do we give up our time to respond to request for help? & as such why do you bother to stay & keep coming back to this forum? Unless you only want to stir & cause debates like this? if so then get a life!!!

If the user had asked the question first about running software on the hard drive then they would have been advised not to do so.
There would be no reason to clone the drive if it had of been a faulty PSU or usb bridge board which we were still trying to determin which was at fault. We can not be held responseable when a user goes off & does something that we dont know they are going to do (even though SAjunky you seem to think we are)


Loki

[loki]

spiker_27

Regarding your replys nothing was ment personally against you, we are just highlighting the risks involved for other newbies who come to this forum.

Yes you made a mistake it happens, time to move on.

Regarding my comment I did say newbies in general not aiming the comment at you & I am glad that you didnt feel like you were being talked down too.

Let us know how your testing of the PSU goes?
If the PSU is ok then replacing the usb bridge board with a compatible one should get the drive spinning.
The issue you will then have is that the MBR will no longer exist (due to testdisk) so it will ask to be formatted or initialised - Dont. You can then try & run R-Studio & see what you can recovery. If your lucky then save your data off the drive. If R-Studio finds files/documents but the folder structure & files names are lost then the MFT has been corrupted or over written but at least you would have your data.


All the best


Loki

[SAjunky]

Regarding my comment I did say newbies in general not aiming the comment at you & I am glad that you didnt feel like you were being talked down too.

I see you do understand why I made my comment. Now you are on the right track.

[poehere]

I beg your pardon, but I don't understand why some people get all butt-hurt about other people making an honest mistake.

They get hurt if they don't make money. But they are happy if you fail. In this case they failed to inform you to clone drive first and make attempts of recovery on the clone, not original. So it is is not your fault. But on the beginning you got good advice from loki.

Tell you the truth on this one it is so un-true this statement. I am not on here to make money or ask people to ship their drives to me to fix them. I live in Tahiti and it would be stupid to ask anyone to send me a drive to fix for them. I come here to be with other people in my field and to lend a hand to people who asks for help. I am not one who wishes to see anyone destroy their drive, loose their data, or do something stupid that is not necessary to do.

Yes I guess I can be angry when I see a person not take good advice to fix their drive. I saw here that the power supply or USB bridge is bad. It was said to get another box the same as the one he has and put his drive in it and test it.

People ask advice on swapping out platters. I have no clue where people have the idea that all drives should have a platter swap on them. This one is crazy and not necessary most of the time.

So if you believe that we are happy to see a person destroy thrir data I feel you are so wrong on this one. Sorry had to add this one here to state my feeling on this statement.

[SAjunky]

So if you believe that we are happy to see a person destroy thrir data I feel you are so wrong on this one. Sorry had to add this one here to state my feeling on this statement.

I don't think OP had been offended by your post. The objection was addressed to someone else. I haven't received it either. Is it OK for you?

[northwind]

Ann, I did not reply to this absurd statement cause if I did, It would get me banned from the forum.