First and foremost, hello to all of you. I've read through these forums for years, but this is the first time I'm posting.

Site note: I actually thought I had an account (so many sites I visit end up being places I've already registered for, but don't recall doing it), but it turns out I don't and had to create a new one.

I hope I'm not repeating a question that's already been asked, but I searched for "initialize crc errors" and didn't turn up anything specific enough to my situation, so here goes:

I've been attempting to recover data from a hard drive, but the best I've been able to do is get it to where I "see" the hard drive and its correct capacity in Disk Management, but when I go to initialize it, the computer reported something along the lines of, "cyclic redundancy errors".

Before I go any further, I should mention that my budget does not allow for professional recovery, and that the files I'm attempting to recover only have sentimental value. I realize that trying to recover data on my own, "unskilled", is not advisable. If I could afford it, I wouldn't be trying to mess with it.

That being said, what I'm primarily after is answers regarding the behavior of a drive in certain circumstances; what behavior would someone suspect when:

1) The wrong heads are used
2) The BIOS chips are corrupt

I've noticed differing behaviors from the two sets of heads I've tried to use. With one set, I could "see" the drive and the heads sounded "OK", but with the other set I couldn't see the capacity of the drive and the heads sounded much worse.

There were a few times while I was trying different PCBs that I didn't have the BIOS chip all the way "down" on the board, and the drive refused to spin-up. My assumption then is that I might expect the same behavior if the chips were corrupted, but that may not be accurate.

I've been successful in the past (~15 recoveries, some personal, most for friends or clients.. like many of you, I'm the person those who know me usually call whenever they have a "computer" problem), so that played a part in my decision making, but it was primarily due to lack of funds. At this point, it's pretty clear to me that I was overconfident in attempting this particular recovery, and, ironically, I may have spent more money than I would have if I'd just sent it in somewhere to begin with. The data I want to recover is only some pictures from when I was younger that I took with my first digital camera, that somehow got bounced around when I needed more space in one drive or another. They ended up on a 2.5" external drive (1tb), which I was a little hesitant about, but went ahead and moved the files over anyway.

Side note: Since the price of SSDs has come down, I've moved most of my data over to those, but the drives they replaced were usually of the 1-3tb variety, so that's why things had to be shuffled from one drive to another. Most of my disk space is tied up in the work that I do (web/graphics, and lately some IT work for small companies), so I suppose I sort of prioritized sentimental stuff low. Of course, as is so very often the case, I now want what I "can't" have. At present, this is now more a practice exercise to try and develop more skills in this area; however, I would still really like to get the data back if I can in the course of this project.

Anyway, thank you for reading, and whatever help anyone on these forums is willing to give me would be most appreciated! If I can become better at this task, I'd love to be of more use to those in the future who might have questions on these forums (with the obvious caveat that I am not a professional data recovery specialist, at least not yet ).

Ancillary info:

OS of computer used in testing of drive: Windows 10 Pro (64-bit)
Area where the work was performed in: Home-built "clean-air" box, two-stage HEPA-filtration (actual filtration not tested with any device that measures particulate count)

Troubled drive:
Make: Western Digital
MDL: WD10JMVW-11AJGS1
DCM: EHKT2HK
PCB: 2060-771961-001 REV-A / Sticker: 771961-001 AH
Date: 11 JUL 2014
Location: Malaysia
Interface: USB 3.0

First donor: (did see drive capacity, but would not initialize)
Make: Western Digital
MDL: WD10JMVW-11AJGS2
DCM: HBKT2HK
PCB: 2060-771961-001 REV-B / Sticker: 771961-J01 AC
Date: 15 JUN 2015
Location: Malaysia

Second donor: (doesn't "see" drive capicity, heads don't sound "healthy")
Make: Western Digital
MDL: WD10JMVW-11AJGS1
DCM: SMHTJHB
PCB: 2060-771961-001 REV-A / Sticker: 771961-001 AH
Date: 13 JUL 2014
Location: Malaysia

Multiple PCBs: (3)
Firmware: 2060-771961-001 REV-A / Stickers removed

Can you upload the ROM from the patient and first donor ?
Second donor is probably not a match (different preamp rev. ?!)

Hello Jermy, and thank you for replying!

I do not have PC-3000 or knowledge of how to go about doing that.

Have I posted in the wrong forum?

Let's take a step back. What was the original issue that made you think you needed to change the heads?

_________________
Luke
Recovery Force Data Recovery

Hello lcoughey, and thank you for replying.

Before I knew it had actually begun to fail, I tried several different USB cables to rule out a bad cable as a possibility (I have had bad luck with USB cables in the past). I think those few times that it was mounting/dismounting caused further damage to the disk, but I'm not certain.

After that, I could hear the heads clicking back and forth pretty consistently, coupled with the inability to get the drive to initialize or mount. In most of the other drives I've worked on, replacing the heads usually did the trick when the heads sounded as they did in this drive. I'm sure you're familiar with the sound.. Spin-up, click, click, click.. On the disk surface, back, on the disk surface, back. As if the heads were unable to "see" the drive.

I didn't know it at the time, but for this series of drive (WD external, USB interface), the symptoms of my drive are often caused by faulty components on the PCB, and not failed heads.