WDBACW0010HBK Data Recovery

[Eienkei]

This 1 TB WD My Book Essential had all of my sister's important data, it was a Windows file system, probably NTFS, however, it just stopped working all of a sudden. She had tried to Initialize Disk as Windows told her which failed. I opened the box and connected it to Windows, saw the Initialize pop-up, assuming the HDD is toast, I clicked Initialize like a fool & it went through!
The drive showed up as unallocated space on Disk Management, I then just cloned an image and disconnected the disk.

I have tried TestDisk which gave me nothing even after the deeper scan.
GetDataBack could just find an HFS drive from WD Mac files but all the files in that drive are fully working so it seems the data is still there.
PhotoRec, on the other hand, gave me a bunch of corrupt files only.
FindAndMount could not find anything either.
R-Studio found a bunch of garbage files.

I found out about DMDE here and I started running it now, any special options to consider?

How damaging the Initialize could have been? Any way to get the files back? I would truly appreciate your help!

[Eienkei]

For some reason, the post got deleted!

fzabkar wrote this PM to me (thank you so much):

I answered your post, but then the thread disappeared.

Anyway, here is my reply:

The drive is encrypted and decrypted by the USB-SATA bridge PCB. You need to replace or repair the bridge board, or you could use a tool such as "reallymine" to decrypt the data.

Sometimes there is an easy DIY fix. Can you elaborate on "it just stopped working all of a sudden"? Does the drive still spin up inside the enclosure?

[Eienkei]

I am using the reallymine to see if I can decrypt the data.
The drive does not spin inside the old enclosure but loads fine in a 3rd party enclosure I purchased.

[fzabkar]

Could we see a photo of the component side of the bridge PCB?

[Eienkei]

Could we see a photo of the component side of the bridge PCB?

Sorry, my inbox doesn't allow me to reply! Here it is, and thank you for your help!

[fzabkar]

https://i.ibb.co/NYmQ9XH/photo5055307908077692999.jpg

Does the LED flash if you power up the bridge PCB on its own?

[Eienkei]

https://i.ibb.co/NYmQ9XH/photo5055307908077692999.jpg

Does the LED flash if you power up the bridge PCB on its own?

It turns on and stays constant.

[RolandJS]

Folks, I want to learn -- in your experience, what does Initialize actually do? One of my guesses: it destroys the file table - which I used to know as FAT/File Allocation Table. Correct?

[fzabkar]

Folks, I want to learn -- in your experience, what does Initialize actually do?

"Initialisation" clears the partition table and writes the MBR code to sector 0. It does not touch the volume boot sectors or their file system metadata.

"Formatting" clears the old $MFT and creates a new one.

[fzabkar]

Does the LED flash if you power up the bridge PCB on its own?

It turns on and stays constant.

That's inconclusive. If it were flashing, then that would prove that the bridge controller wasn't brain dead, in which case there may have been an easy fix.

[fzabkar]

Does the LED flash if you power up the bridge PCB on its own?

It turns on and stays constant.

Is there any change if you press the pushbutton?

[fzabkar]

Can you measure the voltages between ground and each of the +12V and +5V test points?

Attachments

[Eienkei]

No change when keeping the button, unfortunately, don't have a meter to measure the voltage.
Good news is, the "reallymine" tool worked perfectly, it took 48 hours to decrypt the 1 TB drive, then used TestDisk to rebuild the partition table, everything is back and all intact, looks like the PCB was toast without damaging the drive, but I have started to backup all of my old HDDs, backup of backups in a way!
fzabkar, you are the true hero, thank you so so much!