Western Digital WD5000AAKS Data recovery

[spaceman]

Hi I was wondering if I could get some advice. I have had the click of death on my 4 year old WD drive The drive still shows up in BIOS and it still spins up, so from what I've read its likely to be a head problem. Unfortunately it happened the day after I received a new drive and the day before I planned to fit the new drive and back up my data - unbelievably bad luck as the WD drive has never showed any signs of problems!

Anyway to cut a long story short, I'm currently unemployed and really cannot afford to pay a fortune for professional DR. The vast majority of the stuff on the drive is just movie downloads and music, so I dont mind losing that - but unfortunately there are also quite a few photos that I would rather not lose (probably 250mb at most, out of 500gb).

I've noticed that many companies give a free evaluation and a list of files that can be recovered - does this mean that they repair all drives they receive, and just hope that you will take them up on their quote?

How viable is it for me to send the drive to a "cheaper" country to just get the photo files that I really want put on a DVD or uploaded? Has anyone had any experience of doing this? I know that there will be risks to that, but as I said I have very limited funds so the alternative is to bin the drive.

[DrFaustus]

post picture of the Circuit board, if you can, care fully remove it & post pictures of both sides.

[pcimage]

How much are you prepared to pay?

[spaceman]

post picture of the Circuit board, if you can, care fully remove it & post pictures of both sides.

OK I will do - I've ordered a cheap torx set as I don't currently own one. I'l post some pictures of the board when it arrives.

How much are you prepared to pay?

Probably not enough. I've just sold a load of stuff on ebay so I could probably scrape together about £100 at the moment - maybe a little more in a few weeks. The money was planned to be used for other stuff but there we go. I realise that is nothing but in my current situation it is a fortune. If there was a way of "earning" the work I would do it - I have no job right now so I have time but no money

The strange thing is I had a feeling that I should backup my data despite no indication of impending doom! I had just spent £40 on the new drive which I couldn't really afford and all this happened literally a day too early.

Some more info - the drive has now stopped showing up in Bios. I admit to stupidly running it countless times hoping I would get lucky just once to get the photos, but I dont know how this would stop it from showing up in bios. Its still spinning up and "seeking" though, so is there a chance that this indicates a PCB problem?

[Alexii]

some ppl confuse the click of death with calibration sound. There is a chance ur drive has a PCB issue that is by far easier to bypass then heads. Proper diagnostics needed. If you want you can upload the sound here ( i need to hear u power up the drive ) Or better yet see if PCimage can diagnose the issue for you =)
Gl

PS Just read that the Bios does not see he drive no more. Chances of PCB issue gone down considerably. Still possible though.

[spaceman]

post picture of the Circuit board, if you can, care fully remove it & post pictures of both sides.

Hi - here's a link to the photos.

https://picasaweb.google.com/116261233953526545521/Desktop?authkey=Gv1sRgCJSx14--suq64AE

Are they any help in diagnosing the problem?

[spaceman]

The pics no use? Nothing looks damaged on the PCB, but I don't really know about these things.

These companies who do free evaluations and send a list of recoverable files - how can they do this, with say, a head failure? They would have to do the repair to tell you which files are recoverable, right? And then if you can't afford the price, and ask for the drive back without the repair, I presume they "break it" again?

[pcimage]

Happy to take a look and diagnose it for you, to see if by luck it is a PCB problem

[spaceman]

Well after unbelievable bad good - some unbelievable good luck! Just as I was about to put the drive into the envelope to send it off to pcimage, I decided to try it one last time, despite already trying it countless times over the last week. IT WORKED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All files have now be backed up - with important files also backed up online - and very much a lesson learned!!!

I dont know what changed, but I have been messing around with the PCB as I had to remove it to take the photos, so all I can think is that there was a bad connection somewhere or something like that - anyway I don't really care about the reasons - I just extremely happy to get my important files back!

[Nick_CT]

Sometimes luck is on your side

[pcimage]

Good news!!!

You're a lucky boy!