Hi @ll,
i have such a drive here (near Stuttgart, Germany) with some weird behavior.
I need some help to identify the cause, the issue itself and chances for a repair/recovery.
Images: (Click for large image. Sorry for the quality, have only my phone at the moment. Hosted on
postimg.org)

Story:A friend of mine bought a WD USB HDD a week ago(!) from a retailer (Saturn).
For some reason she thought it would be a good idea to "free" her laptop from some Data by MOVING it to this drive.
I suggested to COPY the data back to have it on 2 different media. At this point the pain begins (see Occurence).
She was already at the store again and they offered some kind of DR-service to a standard-price of 60€.
I am not sure what this offer consists of, so does anyone has experience with this offer?
Myself and my friend are both students, so the budget for a "pro" is very limited.
Drive:Code:
Manufacturer: WD
Product: Elements 500GB 2,5" USB 3.0
Model (official): WDBUZG5000ABK-EESN
Model (drive): WD5000BMVW-11AJGS2
Date: 03.02.2014
Origin: Malaysia
First occurence:Afaik the drive experienced no rapid shock or something like this.
Before the user started copying the data / accessing the hdd an installation of a network printer was in progress.
At this time the drive was already attached to the notebook and running ok.
As the installlation of the printer failed, the user wanted to start to copy her data back.
As she opened the minimized Windows Explorer window (My Computer) every further action seemed to take a century to complete (switching to an another window).
After a while, as still no icons were displayed in the "My Computer"-window she detached the drive.
Now:After this the drive is shown with a capacity of 0 Byte when attaching it.
According to the sound it makes i think that the drive tries to spin up an fails. A record of this sound is attached below.
After a couple of tries the drive stops making any sound and the led blinks frequently for a minute or so and then lights up for 2 sec and starts blinking again...
Some Details:There are tons of Events in the Windows-log like this one (this one comes from a Win7 box with an NEC USB3-Controller):
Code:
Log Name: System
Source: Disk
Date: 06.06.2014 20:07:01
Event ID: 11
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: somename
Description:
The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk1\DR11.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="Disk" />
<EventID Qualifiers="49156">11</EventID>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>0</Task>
<Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2014-06-06T18:07:01.015160700Z" />
<EventRecordID>122135</EventRecordID>
<Channel>System</Channel>
<Computer>somename</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data>\Device\Harddisk1\DR11</Data>
<Binary>0E02800001000000000000000B0004C003010000000000000000000000082D000000000000000000AB17090000000000FFFFFFFF0600000058000000000000000000061208000010000000003C000000000000000000000040B5E50680FAFFFF000000000000000020C5E60B80FAFFFF0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000</Binary>
</EventData>
</Event>
I believe the drive resets after almost each retry, because the \DRxx changes every second or so.
On my friend's laptop, where the error first occured, there are Warning-Events of the same type before the drive failed and Error-Events started.
On my linux box you can see the following:
lspci (extract, only relevant parts):
Code:
...
02:00.1 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI4520 PC card Cardbus Controller (rev 01)
...
03:00.0 USB controller: NEC Corporation OHCI USB Controller (rev 41)
03:00.1 USB controller: NEC Corporation OHCI USB Controller (rev 41)
03:00.2 USB controller: NEC Corporation uPD72010x USB 2.0 Controller (rev 02)
lsusb (extract, no other devices on this bus):
Code:
Bus 005 Device 006: ID 1058:10b8 Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
...
dmesg (extract, tail):
Code:
[110082.640156] usb 5-1: new high-speed USB device number 47 using ehci-pci
[110090.253050] usb-storage 5-1:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[110090.253623] scsi30 : usb-storage 5-1:1.0
...
[110091.640807] scsi 30:0:0:0: Direct-Access WD Elements 10B8 1007 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
[110093.339462] sd 30:0:0:0: [sdb] Spinning up disk...
...
[110106.060386] usb 5-1: USB disconnect, device number 47
[110094.840136] .....ready
[110108.580236] sd 30:0:0:0: [sdb] READ CAPACITY failed
[110108.580251] sd 30:0:0:0: [sdb]
[110108.580259] Result: hostbyte=0x01 driverbyte=0x00
[110108.580268] sd 30:0:0:0: [sdb] Sense not available.
[110108.580315] sd 30:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[110108.580327] sd 30:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 06 04 56
[110108.580369] sd 30:0:0:0: [sdb] Asking for cache data failed
[110108.580380] sd 30:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[110108.581954] sd 30:0:0:0: [sdb] READ CAPACITY failed
[110108.581967] sd 30:0:0:0: [sdb]
[110108.581973] Result: hostbyte=0x01 driverbyte=0x00
[110108.581982] sd 30:0:0:0: [sdb] Sense not available.
[110108.582055] sd 30:0:0:0: [sdb] Asking for cache data failed
[110108.582066] sd 30:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[110108.582077] sd 30:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
[110108.870162] usb 5-1: new high-speed USB device number 48 using ehci-pci
[110116.686117] usb-storage 5-1:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[110116.686428] scsi31 : usb-storage 5-1:1.0
[110117.943205] scsi 31:0:0:0: Direct-Access WD Elements 10B8 1007 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
[110119.529443] sd 31:0:0:0: [sdb] Spinning up disk...
...
[110141.010417] usb 5-1: USB disconnect, device number 48
[110121.090063] .....ready
[110147.580285] sd 31:0:0:0: [sdb] READ CAPACITY failed
[110147.580299] sd 31:0:0:0: [sdb]
[110147.580307] Result: hostbyte=0x01 driverbyte=0x00
[110147.580316] sd 31:0:0:0: [sdb] Sense not available.
[110147.580367] sd 31:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is on
[110147.580379] sd 31:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 93 c4 e9 f3
[110147.580422] sd 31:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page found
[110147.580434] sd 31:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[110147.582846] sd 31:0:0:0: [sdb] READ CAPACITY failed
[110147.582860] sd 31:0:0:0: [sdb]
[110147.582867] Result: hostbyte=0x01 driverbyte=0x00
[110147.582876] sd 31:0:0:0: [sdb] Sense not available.
[110147.582965] sd 31:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[110147.582977] sd 31:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 00 00 00
[110147.583020] sd 31:0:0:0: [sdb] Asking for cache data failed
[110147.583031] sd 31:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[110147.583042] sd 31:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
[110147.870165] usb 5-1: new high-speed USB device number 49 using ehci-pci
[110151.501035] usb-storage 5-1:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[110151.501345] scsi32 : usb-storage 5-1:1.0
[110152.040167] usb 4-1: new high-speed USB device number 121 using ehci-pci
[110152.832045] scsi 32:0:0:0: Direct-Access WD Elements 10B8 1007 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
[110154.190543] sd 32:0:0:0: [sdb] Spinning up disk...
...
[110175.250521] usb 5-1: USB disconnect, device number 49
[110155.720131] .....ready
[110180.800314] sd 32:0:0:0: [sdb] READ CAPACITY failed
[110180.800329] sd 32:0:0:0: [sdb]
[110180.800336] Result: hostbyte=0x01 driverbyte=0x00
[110180.800346] sd 32:0:0:0: [sdb] Sense not available.
[110180.800397] sd 32:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is on
[110180.800409] sd 32:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 53 71 b7 d9
[110180.800452] sd 32:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page found
[110180.800463] sd 32:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[110180.803029] sd 32:0:0:0: [sdb] READ CAPACITY failed
[110180.803042] sd 32:0:0:0: [sdb]
[110180.803049] Result: hostbyte=0x01 driverbyte=0x00
[110180.803058] sd 32:0:0:0: [sdb] Sense not available.
[110180.803155] sd 32:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[110180.803167] sd 32:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 00 00 00
[110180.803210] sd 32:0:0:0: [sdb] Asking for cache data failed
[110180.803221] sd 32:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[110180.803232] sd 32:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
[110181.100155] usb 5-1: new high-speed USB device number 50 using ehci-pci
[110187.342332] usb 5-1: unable to get BOS descriptor
[110192.361540] usb 5-1: unable to read config index 0 descriptor/start: -110
[110192.361557] usb 5-1: can't read configurations, error -110
The drive keeps changing its device number / resets all the time while trying to spin up or something. The disconnects in dmesg were not manual.
While redaing through these threads:
howto recover: noise (4 buzzes) at power up WD 2,5"Make USB WD passport Essential drive a functioning Sata drivWD10TMVVWD5000BMVV connectorI first checked if the power supply of the pcb is ok.
So i found +5,20V at E32 (upper middle on pic3). When the drive makes the noise there is some sawtooth freq (~0,3V) modulated on top.
Looks like Vcc is ok.
The sound seems to be quite similar with that one here:
Re: WD10TMVV.
(I won't open the drive myself, since it is new, not mine, aso)
My questions:1. Any hints are welcome

2. What further diagnostic could i run myself? (I don't have a clean room, but access to ET-lab.)
3. Is there a kind of TTL-console-interface on these PCBs? (Like the ones on Seagate drives? I think it would be helpful identifying the exact issue.)
3.1 What's about the pinout of the 12pin connector? Anyone already figured something out?
4. What do you think issued this behavior?
5. What are the most probable defect in this case?
5.1 If the actuator/head(s) are stuck, is it normal that the USB-Controller "resets" so often?
5.2 What would it probably cost to "hire" a "pro" to fix it?
5.3 How high is the success rate for such a case?
5.4 Are there "pros" here from my area?
Thank you very much in advance!
Regards,
sashab