Western Digital Caviar drive died

[dagget]

SOS!!!

Am new to this forum guys and need immediate help my HDD died,

It was doing clicking sound for some time now and today it totally died.

I have used a 2.5 usb kit to connect it to a different machine however it didn't got detected.

recovery is quite costly with professional options here and out of my reach.

need all the help I can get as it contains all my pics and data dearer to my life.

[Vulcan]

It was doing clicking sound for some time now and today it totally died.

It is likely that this is now beyond any DIY recovery (you should have immediately investigated recovery options when it started clicking).

Please clarify:
- what is the drive model number?
- where was it used originally (inside a laptop? somewhere else?)?
- did something unusual happen just before the clicking started?
- what exactly do you mean by "it totally died" - does it spin-up? is it recognised by the BIOS in any way, when fitted in its original location (i.e. not in the USB case that you mentioned)?

recovery is quite costly with professional options here and out of my reach.

need all the help I can get as it contains all my pics and data dearer to my life.

IMHO you may just have to store the drive & start saving for professional recovery, if the data is important, but your full & complete answers to the above questions will help readers to better understand your situation.

[dagget]

Please clarify:
- what is the drive model number?
- where was it used originally (inside a laptop? somewhere else?)?
- did something unusual happen just before the clicking started?
- what exactly do you mean by "it totally died" - does it spin-up? is it recognised by the BIOS in any way, when fitted in its original location (i.e. not in the USB case that you mentioned)?

Thanks Vulcan am a bit mentally shaken with the loss of drive as you can see,the details are as follows:
>Manufacturer-Western Digital
>Make-WD Scorpio Blue S/N-WXB1C2289211
>Used in Laptop,mostly used for storing movies and pics
>no nothing happened out of usual (no physical abuse or stuff ),some time back it started making click sounds while booting but after OS boots no sounds
couple of days back it started to make clicking noise and shows the manufacturer's logo and not boot at all after several restarts it booted up.


Current Situation-its was getting recognized in BIOS however the storage size was showing as 10 GB which was allocated to the recovery partition. however its blank as i have deleted the data.Now I bought another Western Digital 500GB and connected it to the laptop so that I can do my regular stuff and I have also purchased a USB case into which now the corrupted drive is placed.

Need all the help I can to get my pics back.
Thanks in advance
Dagget

[Vulcan]

Thanks for the info. I wish I had better news for you... I was hoping there would be some clues that may help to explain what has happened, but it sounds like gradual degradation (the start of clicking) which has progressed even further.

Current Situation-its was getting recognized in BIOS

I don't quite understand whether the drive is correctly recognised by the BIOS, since you then go on to say...

however the storage size was showing as 10 GB

... but I don't know where you are looking to see that 10GB reported (BIOS? Windows Disk Management? Windows My Computer? Somewere else?)

However the answer only matters if you are going to take the risk of perhaps making things worse, by attempting a DIY recovery. IMHO you have an important decision to make - risk making things worse (or perhaps make it unrecoverable even for a DR company!) and attempt a DIY recovery (for which you would ideally need to buy yet another drive first, same capacaity or greater than the failing drive); or save up for professional recovery, if the data is important and you don't want to risk it.

If the drive is correctly recognised by the BIOS (correct capacity etc.) then that is a good sign, and a DR company using a hardware imager would be more likely to recover the data before things get worse, than you would, IMHO.

[SAjunky]

however the storage size was showing as 10 GB

... but I don't know where you are looking to see that 10GB reported (BIOS? Windows Disk Management? Windows My Computer? Somewere else?)

I guess, it was in Disk Management. OP wrote "as i have deleted the data", so I think OP just deleted recovery partition, and now "its blank". Valid data is still in corrupted partition and any partion recovery software is able to bring it up (after successful cloning).

[dagget]

@Vulcan , the machine is unable to boot into the windows the figures are displayed in the BIOS.
10 GB was the original recovery partition which was pre-configured by dell when the machine arrived.I have formatted it.
I become greedy and tried to add the space as extended however unsuccessful.

I have already connected a 500 GB hdd into the laptop and the corrupted drive sits in the USB case.

Now the machine has altogether stopped recognizing the drive not even in the bios.

@SAjunky

I guess, it was in Disk Management. OP wrote "as i have deleted the data", so I think OP just deleted recovery partition, and now "its blank". Valid data is still in corrupted partition and any partion recovery software is able to bring it up (after successful cloning).

Now the machine is unable to detect the original drive
Q1 will the partition recovery & Cloning work inthis situation or it will not?
Q2 will this DIY has a potential risk to damage all the data ?If yes to what extent?

[dagget]

Thanks for the replies guys.

@Vulcan
The 10 GB partition was recovery partition came pre-programmed by Dell.
I got greedy and formatted that portion to get extra space as extended however failed.It remained out of the OS and untouched. after the disk stopped booting the Bios can recognize the Drive with drive name and left over 10gigs of space.

Now the Disk failed to get recognized in the BIOS all together and I have replaced it with a new Scorpio 500 gigs loaded it with Win7 Ultimate.

I have the Corrupt disk in a USB case and ints not getting detected in the windows didn't cheked in the Bios again yet.

@SAjunky
The disk is not getting recognized at all in the bios now.What are my options here?
Am new to this stuff will partition recovery software work as the drive is not getting recognized in the BIOS?
will this DIY (cloning and partition recovery)cause any damage to the data?If yes to what extent?

Thanks in advance guys
Dagget

[Vulcan]

Thanks for the update. I can see that you're trying to explain the situation, although some of the details are still too vague for me to understand everything. However, even without me understanding every detail of your reply, you have answered the most important of my earlier questions:

Now the Disk failed to get recognized in the BIOS all together

Based on that symptom and an educated guess of what has happened to the drive, IMHO you have no sensible options for DIY recovery. Sorry for the bad news.

[SAjunky]

It is frequent that drive is not recognised in USB external box, but still working in PC (expect some errors, as it is a reason USB controller rejects it).
Move drive to PC, connect it to SATA controller and see if BIOS can recognise disk. If drive is recognised correctly (with name and LBA) procede with cloning.

[Vulcan]

Move drive to PC, connect it to SATA controller and see if BIOS can recognise disk.

I thought that is exactly the test the OP did, and he said that the BIOS did not recognise the (failing) drive...

[dagget]

thx guys for all the help and guidance till now

@Vulcan right I might not be able to convey it properly.

As SAjunky suggested I tried my drive again and here is the screenshot of the BIOS it only shows 10GB in place of the HDD name and identifier.

This might convey it all properly.

Thanks in Advance for all your valuable suggestions guys ...Need it and muchly appriciated.

thanks
Dagget.

Attachments

[Vulcan]

Thanks for this info.

As SAjunky suggested I tried my drive again and here is the screenshot of the BIOS it only shows 10GB in place of the HDD name and identifier.

So this seems different to part of your previous update, where you said that "the Disk failed to get recognized in the BIOS all together" (my emphasis). Your screen photo appears to show that the disk is recognised, but with the wrong capacity.

IMHO this situation still looks hopeless for any DIY options as I said earlier, due to the incorrect drive recognition. I could suggest more info gathering (I started to write some here a few minutes ago), but based on the info you're showing, and assuming that the device reporting 10GB capacity really is this WD disk, then further info gathering won't change the end result.

I'll leave SAjunky to help you. I'm sorry to say that I think you're out of sensible DIY options, based on what you have reported.

[SAjunky]

I'll leave SAjunky to help you. I'm sorry to say that I think you're out of sensible DIY options, based on what you have reported.

Why is this sarcastic comment? I don't understand.

I agree with Vulcan that with your computer skills it would be very tough to guide you, unless you find a friend who would assist you in recovering drive and then to clone it.. I feel there is a DIY solution, as Vulcan was about to write something.

My advice would be not conclusive, as my experience is very little. What I did with similiar drive not recognised in BIOS or partially recognised, is called translator regeneration. It works, but you must remember that it doesn't cure drive original problem, just temporary brings it to life and allows to clone it (with great possibility it would die again during cloning).

So if you want to research further, I can supply links to Russian Web sites, but for now - I think - put the drive on the shelf, don't allow more stress and be prepaired it would take some time to learn and understand what to do.

In general you would have to learn how to use MHDD 4.5 and translator regeneration scripts. Then learn about cloning process with ailing drive.

[Vulcan]

I'll leave SAjunky to help you. I'm sorry to say that I think you're out of sensible DIY options, based on what you have reported.

Why is this sarcastic comment? I don't understand.

There was no sarcasm.

I've run out of sensible low-risk DIY suggestions, based on what I understand from the information supplied ; you seemed to understand the OP better (or at least differently) than me, due to what you write in your earlier postings; my comment was just trying to convey to the OP that I wasn't excluding the possibility that your better/different understanding of the situation, may still offer hope. That's all - no hidden agenda.

[SAjunky]

you seemed to understand the OP better (or at least differently) than me, due to what you write in your earlier postings; my comment was just trying to convey to the OP that I wasn't excluding the possibility that your better/different understanding of the situation, may still offer hope. That's all - no hidden agenda.

All right, and now one picture says all.

[dagget]

Vulcan & SAjunky thanks for all your help n support till now.
I appriciate both of you for bearing with a nov like me.
Seems am gonna need both of your support in my uphill task.

SAjunky ive placed the drive back on shelf am up for the taks bring it on.
So where to start from

[SAjunky]

So where to start from

Seriously? Don't miss school classes, get good marks and tomorrow you will be WD emplyee, so you would not need to charge fortune for 5 minutes fix.

1. Now on less serious note and back tp the subject, learn about computers, interfacing, booting process, MHDD, particularly running scripts on MHDD, test it on a good working drive (not storing important data) how to use it.

2. Read hddguru forum, there is lot of information. Some other forums:
http://forum.ru-board.com/topic.cgi?forum=84&topic=4089
http://www.hardw.net/forum/topic9560.htm

3. Learn about ATA standard, there are public documents like this:ftp://lab.unb.br/pub/info/t13/docs2005/e05109r4-ATA8-SCT.pdf

4. Learn about WD implementation of vendor specific SCT commands to access firmware zone. Great clue is given on Lithuanian site:
http://yura.puslapiai.lt/files/wd/mhdd/index.html
And more clue is given here:http://community.wdc.com/t5/Desktop-Portable-Drives/WD5000ABYS-valid-SMART-but-NOT-Readable/td-p/314179

5. Learn how to identify family of your drive, by example "Royl" and to find out if Yura script for translator regeneration works on your drive, search for: [wd marvel royl] in this example.

6. Learn how to backup firmware modules (using SCT commands) and write it back to platters.

7. Take you drive containing your data from the shelf and backup firmware.

9. If you are prepaired to risk losing data, apply translator regeneration script.

[labtech]

Interesting...

[SAjunky]

What is interesting?

[labtech]

So where to start from

Seriously?