Data Recovery - Advanced Format Technology Drives

[Amarbir[CDR-Labs]]

Guys ,
We Have a Case Of a WDC External Casing with a HDD That Supports AFT .Taking the drive out revels that its a AFT drive .I am trying to do the following

1 : clone the same to another drive using DMDE
2 : Use WDC AFT tool and Convert It
3 : Use Data Recovery software [ For Recovery , Might Be i see it directly ]

I am Using Windows XP pro .

[einstein9]

what is AFT ?
could u explain this plz

[chinopk]

Yes please explain what do you mean by AFT ?

[Amarbir[CDR-Labs]]

Hello ,
Please visit WDC And Check Advance format Technology .

[Amarbir[CDR-Labs]]

Hi ,
Part Number Of The WDC External Drive Is WDBAAJ0010HSL-00 .When i cloned the drive to another drive and tried AFT utility from WDC it did not find a AFT drive lol though the drive is AFT .I think the Drive Is Bonded to the Controller Board ,running the Drive Of the controller board does not yield any result with a diff adapter also .I think the HDD is Bonded [ also encrypted] To The Board .any One Of you Have Any clue About what i should be doing here gentlemen .This is a USB/firewire 400/800 1 Tb External By WDC With LCd Panel

[drc]

The AFT-ness should not have any bearing on data recovery at all, with the exception that if you run into bad sectors it will be 8 in a row. The drive still presents itself as a 512-byte sector drive, just handles things differently internally.

[Amarbir[CDR-Labs]]

The AFT-ness should not have any bearing on data recovery at all, with the exception that if you run into bad sectors it will be 8 in a row. The drive still presents itself as a 512-byte sector drive, just handles things differently internally.

Well ,
The Problem Is That the customer Had this Running On Two Machines Windows 7 And Windoew XP .This is the Drive -> http://www.i-tech.com.au/products/57261 ... _AESN.aspx .All Logical Data Recovery options Have Failed .This Logical Structure even In the Partition Table Seems Weird .I am sure Something Is Wrong Somewhere .

Sector 0

180: CE EE D7 39 8C 68 9F 0E - D4 9F 21 1F 78 BB F1 61 Îî×9ŒhŸ.ÔŸ!.x»ña .㧗梌ຟ.ἡ뭸懱

This Is Weird

[fzabkar]

When i cloned the drive to another drive and tried AFT utility from WDC it did not find a AFT drive lol though the drive is AFT .I think the Drive Is Bonded to the Controller Board ,running the Drive Of the controller board does not yield any result with a diff adapter also

http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg ... faqid=3885

"Note: The Acronis version of WD Align successfully aligns WD External Storage products containing Western Digital Advanced Format Drives. However, WD does not support using any of our Advanced Format Drive alignment utilities on third party USB enclosures."

[Amarbir[CDR-Labs]]

When i cloned the drive to another drive and tried AFT utility from WDC it did not find a AFT drive lol though the drive is AFT .I think the Drive Is Bonded to the Controller Board ,running the Drive Of the controller board does not yield any result with a diff adapter also

http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg ... faqid=3885

"Note: The Acronis version of WD Align successfully aligns WD External Storage products containing Western Digital Advanced Format Drives. However, WD does not support using any of our Advanced Format Drive alignment utilities on third party USB enclosures."

Well ,
I Know this ,I Scanned and i think the section of data in scrambled via some WDC software Thats there in this AFT drive ,It does have a mac partition For sure with that software


UPDATE :

About the Western Digital® SmartWare™ Virtual CD


The WD SmartWare Virtual CD (VCD) included on your WD hard drive mimics an ordinary physical CD that is indistinguishable to your hard drive. The WD SmartWare VCD contains the software you need to start using the WD SmartWare software to organize, back up, retrieve, and secure your files as well as other essential information, and has the additional benefit of avoiding wear and tear, damage, or loss of a physical CD.

In addition, updates to the WD SmartWare VCD, when available, are automatically downloaded from the web to your drive so you don’t have to wait for the arrival of a physical replacement CD.
To view the contents of the WD SmartWare VCD, do one of the following:

* For Windows, right-click the WD SmartWare VCD icon; then choose Open from the drop-down menu.
* For the Macintosh, double-click the WD SmartWare icon on the desktop.

What’s on the WD SmartWare VCD?

The WD SmartWare VCD includes the following:

* Unlock Application
The Unlock application lets you plug your WD SmartWare drive into any computer and unlock it manually, ensuring that your data is secure until you choose to make it available.

* WD SmartWare Software Installation Icon
* The WD SmartWare icon lets you start the software installation process. Double-click the WD SmartWare icon to begin installing the WD SmartWare software.

* Extras Folder
The Extras folder includes a Quick Install Guide, a PDF document that shows you how to quickly connect your WD drive to your computer. In addition, a shortcut to the Adobe.com web site is provided to let you download the latest version of the Adobe Acrobat Reader application for opening, viewing, and printing the Quick Install Guide, if desired.

User Manual
The User Manual folder provides the User Manual for the My Book and My Passport devices. The User Manual, provided in 22 languages, is available by double-clicking the folder containing the desired language, and includes information about available support, connecting your drive, installing the WD SmartWare software, backing up and retrieving files, and customizing your drive. In addition, a Troubleshooting and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section is included.

* WD SmartWare Folder
The WD SmartWare folder contains various components of the WD SmartWare software that comprise the overall product. In addition, automated updates to the software are placed in this folder.

[crecomp]

i had a simnilar case recently
data could not be read when drive was removed from controller and placed on any of the tools we use, drive appeared to be empty.
i repaired the damamged controller board of the usb enclosure and all went back to working correctly.
hope it helps

[Amarbir[CDR-Labs]]

i had a simnilar case recently
data could not be read when drive was removed from controller and placed on any of the tools we use, drive appeared to be empty.
i repaired the damamged controller board of the usb enclosure and all went back to working correctly.
hope it helps

Yes ,
What did You Do in the controller board i was also thinking exactly the same now .What Was wrong in the one you had .the board actually reads the WD software off the MAc partition of the Drive then Provides Access to Drive Data .I have another case today and if i manage to get that up i will have that software running off the system .Might be then i can see something otherwise no choice other then the controller .

Thank you :

Last edited by Amarbir[CDR-Labs] on July 12th, 2010, 1:20, edited 1 time in total.

[crecomp]

on my particular board there was a bad connection, i reflowed the entire board which must of fixed up the bad connection.
once that was done i was able to plug the drive back into the board, and used recovery program to read data from drive.

[einstein9]

Amarbir

i think that the MY BOOK STUDIO "your drive" is locked by the controller which is inside the drive and as you said it is a MAC Partition and when you plug the HD outside it is not reading it.

so i think that the case is the controller inside the My Book is writing/reading files/partition in another way.

my suggestion is the following:

1- get everything back inside
2- there should be a utility to disable the appz inside the virtual partition and deal with the drive as a normal external en-closer (this step will disable the security/password for the drive and can be reversed by using the same WD tools that comes for the drive.

and see if ur windows can read it or not.

if yes, then you can clone the drive.
if not, let me know

thnx

[unknown]

[Amarbir[CDR-Labs]]

:lol:

Haa Haa ,
If It Was Working I Would Have Done That ,Its a controller Issue I am Taking ut Components To Test them One By One ,When a Drive is Plugged Via controller The 12 Volt Drops Till 10 Volts And then again Rises Back To 12 ,I Think some Mosfet Might Be At Fault Here .

@ einstein9
Its Still Time For You To Learn Before You Comment Alright ,though Thank You

[einstein9]

Amarbir

time to learn <---

well, i think u 2, time to learn, everybody is learning dude, if u see some good answers that might help u that is fine, but remember never under estimate people, sometimes the answer comes from a little mistake that you did and did not notice, and some foolish comment might remind u to the correct path.
if u get my point here.

and u most welcome dude

[Amarbir[CDR-Labs]]

Amarbir

time to learn <---

well, i think u 2, time to learn, everybody is learning dude, if u see some good answers that might help u that is fine, but remember never under estimate people, sometimes the answer comes from a little mistake that you did and did not notice, and some foolish comment might remind u to the correct path.
if u get my point here.

and u most welcome dude

Woo ,
No Reason To Get worked Up .you did Not See My Reply i Said Thank You too .

[xsoliman]

Just adding the 512E tag to this thread

Advanced Format drives
such as the external one mentioned above
and the latest WD green EARS ones WD10EARS etc

internally 4K physical sectors but still exposed as 512 byte logical sectors

[xsoliman]

Just for info, a Windows7 / Server2008R2 fix has just been released to better handle 512e drives in certain circumstances

KB982018

And support for a Windows API to read physical sector size of storage
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff566344(VS.85).aspx
STORAGE_ACCESS_ALIGNMENT_DESCRIPTOR

The main Advanced Format drives are the WD10EARS WD15EARS WD20EARS

512e: 4K physical sectors, but exposed as 512 byte logical sectors

The WD drives have an‘XP jumper’ that just internally increments the logical LBA by one to make it better aligned for older OS’s
But not need for Vista onwards which already sets up partitions with multiple of 4K alignment

No way to set it up as 4K native (with 4K logical sectors)
always appears as 512byte logical sectors


More details of this on
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/wd-4k-sec ... 31819.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Format

[xsoliman]

No way to set it up as 4K native (with 4K logical sectors)
always appears as 512byte logical sectors

Whether any of the WD specific ATA commands can handle larger than 512 byte sectors is unknown for now

marv_r.exe still seems to work ok
The mhdd cs.bin and read block 21/22 technique sort of works (with 512byte blocks)