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I have recovered data due to logical errors before but this is my first time with a physical failure. I will hopefully have someone look at it, but before I proceed I had a couple questions about what may or may not work.
I know a bit about hard drives, but not a lot. I plugged in my external WD (model wdbacw0030hbk-01) and I received and error message saying it couldn't initialize and it wouldn't allow me to verify of repair via disk utility but it did show in disk utility. I ejected it and then tried to mount it again and it would not show up on the desktop or in disk utility. I also noted that there appeared to be no vibration of spinning inside the enclosure. I checked and switched cables and tried a different laptop. The light in front was still blinking, faster when plugged into the wall directly and slowly when plugged into a surge protector.
I am waiting to hear back from a friend of a friend who does corporate data recovery, but I was wondering if taking apart the enclosure and plugging the SATA into a dock is even a possible solution to this? I am not well-versed enough in all the hardware pieces of a HDD to be able to tell if that's a possible fix or not and would like to try it if possible but if it just doesn't make sense I can save myself $25.
Can you even recover data from a disk that isn't spinning? I can't seem to find much information on it, basically everything i come across says physical failure = send to a professional. It has photographs of my sons birth etc. on it, but I don't know if I can justify spending $1000's on recovery.
I have no desire to try something crazy and damaging. I'm also curious if removing the SATA from the housing runs the risk of making it impossible or harder for professional to recover data later. I'd like to try some non-destructive troubleshooting. Thanks!
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