WD20EARS recovery

[logicgamer]

A friend of mine asked me to recover some files from his WD Book live 2TB.
The drive inside is a WD20EARS.

The problem is that is spins up, makes some seek sounds and does nothing for a while and turns off.
During this time it is not detected by the computer.
Connecting it on boot results in the system hanging at the bios and then give a "SATA 4 ERROR" warning.
Using a usb kit to connect will result in a unknown 10.5PB harddrive.
A forensic imager like the TD1 from Tableau does not detect the harddrive.

I suspect a problem with the PCB, could anyone confirm?
Is there anything i might be able to do?

[DRforensic]

hi, logicgamer
possible fouls:
-bad pcb (10 %)
-bad heads 50 %
-bad firmware 35 %
-5 % other

how the drive failed?
impact? suddenly stop ID?
give a bit more info and the above % prediction might change.

[lcoughey]

My vote is heads and possibly fatal head crash...especially if the drive was powered on a lot since it stopped responding.

[freakzy]

Not PCB problem at all, I'm afraid.

[logicgamer]

How he explained it to me:

He was copying files to the NAS when it stopped responding. He went to check on the nas and noticed it sounded like it was active copying files or something. He had this problem a few weeks ago when it disappeared and it sorted itself out.
He left the nas alone for a few hours but nothing changed. he pulled the power from the unit and let it cool down for a few minutes and then plugged it in. It was dead ever since.

The drive was located on top of a shelf, it did not receive any kind of impact.
I just listend to it a bit better and it sounds like it spins up and when it's at full rpm it seems to let go a bit and spin up again. Then it makes the "normal" sound like its reading something and then keeps spinning idle.
I am not an expert at these things, but since it are mainly movies and music on the drive (it was used as backup drive for important things so the originals are intact) i wanted to give it a try to recover it.

I trust your opinions.

[lcoughey]

I still think heads.

[pcimage]

I still think heads.

Yes, a reasonable chance it is heads, but as it keeps spinning (or so we are led to believe) it could also well be a firmware issue.

Either way it's not DIY

I'd sooner have a head issue than a fw problem on these things any day!!

[logicgamer]

Well, since the drive still is in warranty (i checked with WD) i think i rather return it then tinker with it.

I'm curious, how exactly would you upgrade the firmware of a hard drive?
Trough the sata port, or do you need special equipment.

Btw, if you would like i could record a clip of the drive running so you can give your opinion about it, i could be completely wrong.

[northwind]

A sound recording would help.
It could be heads or f/w and these drives are affected by a BSY bug (which I predicted would hit the market very soon).
I'm afraid there is no DIY for any of the 3 issues.

When we say "firmware problem" we do not mean it needs to be flashed the same way a BIOS is flashed with its newer version. Hard drives do not work this way at all.

I'd sooner have a head issue than a fw problem on these things any day!!

+1

[dobrevjetser]

We do datarecovery for Belgium and Holland if you are interested for a free diagnosis and quote.

Dobre

[logicgamer]

@northwind
I understand that, and i don't want to try to fix it that way, i was just curious about the whole firmware flashing thing for hard drives, that's why i asked.

@dobrevjetser
Thank you for your offer, but the files on the drive are not valuable enough for my friend to spend any amount of money on recovery.

This whole recovery was just a quick and dirty check if it can be recovered by simply extracting it from it's housing.
Since that's not the case i will return the drive to WD to have it replaced within warranty.

However, it would still be nice to find what actually made this hard-drive fail, so i will make a sound recording this week and post it here.

[logicgamer]

Sorry for the bump but here is the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4BV7-uEbfA

At 1:10 you are able to hear the drive "restart".

I have assembled the drive back into the wd-live housing and will return it next week.
Maybe someone is able to identify the problem that made this drive fail?

[mr_spokk]

To me it sounds like a head is on the platter...a very faint metallic sound....I could hear it better after the restart @1.10
So expect a metallic ring of death

Bosse

[logicgamer]

Well i send the drive to WD last weekend.

I wanted to thank everyone here for their support.

[labtech]

For me, it seems like heads with possible platter damage. What caused this? Guess is it was dropped.

[logicgamer]

Well, i was not there, but it was positioned at a high shelf and he needed to use a ladder in order to get to the drive when it failed.
I doubt it was dropped (since it's a NAS he didn't need any physical access), but he told me it was very hot when it happend.

We will never know why it failed.

[madhatt3r]

"We will never know why it failed."

Does you friend have any children? or anyone else living in the house for that matter...