WD Blue 2Tb 3.5 SATA, spins, no bad sounds, not recognized

[itdatagroup]

WD BLUE 2TB 3.5 SATA
dell machine ( out of warranty )
windows OS disk
very lite use
one day just would not boot

it's "what the f?" kind of problem:
- took disk out, connected thru usb cable
- disk powers up
- spins, sounds normal
- no loud clicking, no buzzing, no grinding, no beeping, no cyclical clunking
- typical minor hd chirping sound to the ear

problem: not even showing up as disk in Disk Management in windows

+ removed SATA board from back of drive and cleaned contacts with eraser and board with alcohol wipe
board seems fine, nothing burnt on it, contacts look clean, drive was not dropped.

do not want to pop the drive open to see if the head is stuck on platter.

any suggestions ?

Thanks !



...

[lcoughey]

Sounds like firmware issues, at the very least. Definitely don't open the drive. Best to send to a pro who has the right tools to properly diagnose and recover it.

[itdatagroup]

OK,
after 2ND TIME cleaned the SATA controller board contacts with effing eraser + used alcohol wipe on both sides of the board -> the drive came alive!

removed all partitions in AOMI Partition Assistant
quick format in win 10
the drive is now empty, no files on it...
done

next, tested the drive:
WD dashboard ( crappy app ) app showing drive as green NORMAL
SMART test ( both short and extended ) showing error 7
Reassigned Sector Count 782 140 N/A

next did
CrystalDiskInfo
showing CAUTION
Reassigned Sector Count 174 174 140
Current Pending Sector count 200 200 0
Uncorrectable Sector count 200 200 0
the rest of rows are ok
9225 hours ON the drive = 385 days

next did
win 10 -> explorer -> drive -> properties -> tool -> error checking -> scan -> no errors

next did
chkdsk from cmd console with /f -> 0 bad sectors
1953511423 KB total disk space.
35908 KB in 8 files.
76 KB in 16 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
125823 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
1953349616 KB available on disk.

next did
MINITOOL Partition Wizard --> surface test --> showed 10red squares in the 1st row of sectors +
the rest of the rows below the 1st one are all green ( about 50 errors after stopped scanning )

questions:
- recommendation: toss the drive or keep using it for non critical storage ?

- which software will go thru the drive and mark bad sectors so that they won't be used again ?

- about relocating bad sectors, this guy ( HDD Regenerator ) has free utility to relocate bad sectors
anybody tried it ?

Thanks !

[Arch Stanton]

Toss

Victoria for Windows

[lcoughey]

Nice...I've only had success from contact cleaning once or twice in 25 years.

[itdatagroup]

So guys, I was able to restore this WD blue 3.5 2tb back to life
ran chkdsk /f /r /x on it, took 6 hours on an empty drive
bad sector count went up a little bit
win 10 smart status is still showing OK
CrystalDiskInfo showing caution
WD diagnostics showing smart status OK
disk is usable again, with caution of course
will use it as a WD MY BOOK donor/loaner