Hello. I have a WD Elements WDBAAU0020HBK-01 which failed on me.
Now the OS doesn't recognize it. It starts spinning and after 30 seconds stops and white light keeps blinking. To add to the saga, it's a truecrypt volume!

1) Any tips on how to bring it back to life?
2) Data recovery company says they will read it sector by sector. How do they do that? Is there anyway I can read the disk at home like that? I have a recovery software but OS doesn't even recognize it. I figure if I open the disk and try another enclosure or what not - then a recovery program might read it ... but I'll have to read the entire 2 TB sector by sector and then pray that truecrypt is not corrupted.

Thanks a lot for any advice.

Everything point to a physical problem. The disk needs to be diagnosed, repaired (OUCH !!) and then you have to deal with TrueCrypt , but first you need a working clone / image.
I'm afraid you cannot do anything on your own.
I would check if the disk ALONE stays ON. If not, it's game over for DIY for sure.

Thank you. The disk spins for a minute and then stops but the light keeps blinking.
When you say working clone / image -- I assume you mean the data recovery company will read it sector by sector and copy it to another disk as a clone / image, right?

What kind of tech do they use? for a few thousand dollars they want maybe I can buy the equip and do it myself?
Cheers.

The problem not with the few thousand dollars. The problem with the precise diagnosis.

Why not ask that 'recovery company' what they exactly use and do step by step?

First of all, get the drive out of enclosure, apply power to it and see how it is behaving and report here.

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Thank you. I did that. It behaves the same as when it's in the enclosure. Starts. Spins. Makes a few clicks. And stop spinning - goes totally quiet - and white light blinks.

I've read many others having had this problem with Western Digital Disks and I'm thinking it may be criminal on their part to put a bogus product in the market knowing it has such a high failure rate. Many people reported theirs died after 6 months which is about how old mine is.

I have 100 GB of data there that I need and can't afford thousands for recovery. I don't think the sectors are broken b/c nothing happened -- my gut feeling is it's the head or the electronics but I don't know about disk internals...

Any tips would be appreciated.

WD drives are not different from other, maybe a little or more difficult to deal with when they fail (in my experience), but I have hundreds of them at work and they don't fail more than other. The point is that I have all them in CONTROLLED ENVIRONMENT from power supply to vibration.
And people should understand once for all that a 2, 3 TB or even a 500GB "monster" is a DELICATE instrument like any other HDD. They would NEVER hit their Rolex or even a cheaper wrist watch, but they mis-handle drives and want theor drives to withstand all this. Crazy.
In my opinion ,in a nutshell , large drives are more prone to fail, but people deserve what they demand for : lower prices, higher capacity... and this is the result.

SO SAID, as the drive has same behaviour and the enclosure is not at fault, 100% seems an internal problem. Refer to the nearest professional if you want good chances about getting your data (or part of it) back, or replace the drive accepting the loss and carry on. Forget replacing PCB and all internet bullshit, there are no tips or tricks in this case.

Final consideration before you ask : the price range is in the high region for this kind of intervention, so don't expect 100, 200 EUR or so. Don't forget you need a precise diagnose that most probably require quasi-invasive analysis.

Thanks. I read too many cases of this particular model of drive failing. But I hear you.

As far as I'm concerned a drive should handle tipping on its side -- this is not a fall or drop - just you put it on the floor and it may drop to its side... but maybe not.

What do you think of solid state drives. A Mac I'm looking at comes with a 500 GB one but I don't see large capacity solid state drives in the market - or are there? Is this the direction the industry going?

Ciao.

SSDs don't suffer from fall (except from 2nd floor.... ) but they have a lot of other issues and they are a nightmare to recover - when possible at all. There are pros and cons depending on use and application.

thanks. if u have time pls tell me what are the disadvantages / other issues you mentioned.

You need to remove the drive from the enclosure, disconnect it from the USB-SATA bridge board, and then connect it to a SATA port on your computer's motherboard.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Thank you

1) will try that. What makes you think this will work?
2) I saw on youtube that this click could be b/c of damaged head - so i could buy the same drive - then replace the heads (200 vs. 2000 dollars for recovery). what do you think?

The chances that YOU successfully change heads are less than zero - and you'll destroy the drive too.

Connecting the drive directly to a SATA port will confirm beyond doubt whether the problem is with the drive, plus it will allow for better diagnostic access.

I wouldn't attempt a head swap unless I had a lot of practice. The last head replacement I did was 20 years ago. Heads were much bigger then, and my eyesight was much better, too.

BTW, your data recovery cost should not exceed US$800 plus parts:
http://myharddrivedied.com/hard-drive-recovery

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A backup a day keeps DR away.