WD5000AAKS WD 500gb SATA Nightmare !!!

[x-press]

Hi there.

I just put some pictures from my camera from my main computer onto this drive to backup. Guess what .. the drive went down before I did the backup!

It's knocked me pretty hard and I am pretty depressed about it. Not eating properly and going to the wall (

This has taught me this time to backup! It's a SATA drive with a jumper on the fourth set of points.

Drive does that calibration sound and then I get the ding in XP but then I hear 2 little clicks x 5 and then nothing. No sound of searching the drive and autoplay! This makes me believe however that my data may be safe (

No alarming sounds, scratching, sounds of damage to platters, making me hopeful.

Could it be the firmware? I would consider trying another PCB on the hard drive.

MDL: WD5000AAKS - 00TMA0
DATE: 15 JUN 2007
DCM: HBRCNV2AB

I would consider paying to get the pictures back .. I have a very limited income .. can anyone help in the London area? This has knocked me pretty hard ( I would just love to get back on track and learn by my lesson

I have tried the drive in another external case. It doesn't even spin up in a brand new safecom case, and in one that I know works, it doesn't show up in disk management but in the case it has always been in, it shows up as non initialized and shows the drive. I have not initialized it. I tried getdataback for NTFS on it and it won't read, just error 121 ..

Any help I would be extremely grateful because this has really knocked me down.

Thank you,

x-press

[rchadwick]

Some general advice...

First, assuming you have a Desktop, or access to one, hook the drive directly to the motherboard. It's much easier to troubleshoot just a drive, than a drive AND a USB enclosure simultaneously. When connected to the MB, see if it's recognized in the BIOS.

Second, get out of Windows. The Ultimate Boot CD is a start (http://www.ultimatebootcd.com)

Third, if you can, image the drive. Treat the drive as if it will completely die at any moment (Because it might!) Image the drive to a new one, and you can take your time with the image.

[x-press]

Thank you for your advice. I am only on laptop so I don't have easy access to a motherboard

I do agree it's easier to troubleshoot a drive than a drive and an enclosure, psu ..!

If i use the boot CD, what program should I boot up into .. could I try a linux boot cd?

I tried to image the drive with activ@ partition recovery and it stopped at 4mb ..

thank you,

x-press

[rchadwick]

A Linux CD would perhaps be a better choice, just a little steeper learning curve if you're not a Linux Guru. Unfortunately, many DOS tools may have problems with USB drives. It really limits you if you don't have a desktop.

[davidzhou]

you can touch this MSN:.com,or E-mail it.

Another professional spammer from SalvationData. Links removed.

[x-press]

My many thanks to you Rchadwick, for taking the time to help people like myself on the forum for free ..

As for me, I am still struggling with life at the moment, not able to eat and sleep

I am just trying to figure out in my head what went wrong ..

if there is a calibration noise, (a bit like a winding noise) and if the drive is being noticed in windows with the beep beep noise, but no searching across the heads, just two very faint clicks *pause* then two very faint clicks *pause*, this happens another three times and then the drive is just sitting there spinning. no sound of disc or platter damage.

what kind of problem does this sound like? i fear it may be a power surge and something needs changing on the pcb ...

Please advise, I am in a desparate state ..

[rchadwick]

You would be very lucky if a PCB swap would recover your data, but it likely is not an easy (Cheap) thing to fix. It's difficult to tell from a description of the sounds. It might be a firmware issue, perhaps bad heads. Either choice is bad for you. Firmware requires a $450 tool if you wanted to fix it yourself (David Zhou sells it). Head replacement is much more difficult. I wish I had better news for you. To make matters worse, it's difficult shopping around for a cheap DR company. If you find someone who promises to do it for a very cheap price, they likely don't know what they're doing, and might ruin your chances if you later take it to someone else. If your data isn't time sensitive, you might be better packing the drive up safely, and wait until you can afford proper DR.