Hello everyone,

First time poster, but went through quite a few threads about the WD model in question and apparently these seem to be no strangers for troubles.

Mine is slightly different, however, so decided to ask for your advise.

I've had this drive for years now, probably close to ten. It has been used mainly as an archive, meaning that I would store stuff on it and then unplug it and leave it be until the time said data was required.

Last week I found myself needing some files from it and plugged it in but it would not be recognized by Win10 immediately. The port I plugged it in was one of the USB2 ports via extension cable from my monitors, so I thought that perhaps that was the cause for it not coming up, so I plugged it in directly to a USB3 port on my box. Yet I was still unable to access the drive.

I opened up the Device Manager and there was an USB Mass Storage Device with the yellow exclamation mark and a name (USB Port Reset Failed).

I tried it on other computers but would end up with same results, or after a while "USB Enumeration Failed" or "Set Address Failed" (or something along those lines).

The drive sounds like it spins OK, I can hear the heads going about (sort of rattling noise, nothing out of ordinary IMO) and after a while it will do a click which sounds like the heads return home. It keeps on cycling this pattern until finally it seems to give up and just sit there spinning and windows won't recognize it.

A couple of times I have gotten as far as the drive actually appearing in File Explorer with an assigned drive letter and I have also gotten a list of the root folders, but if I try to access any of them, it would pretty much get stuck and Windows will say the drive has errors.
In the event log I can see all sorts of delayed write failed errors and warnings.

I was looking at the U12 flash chip and it is the bottom solder type and I will probably have hard time swapping it to a donor board. I have no access to clean rooms so internal problems I will not be able to even imagine to solve at the moment, but I would perhaps somehow manage a small board repair (or attaching a SATA IF on it).
I have done some basic DR back in the PATA days, but I am not a professional or seasoned DR guy by any means. However, I think I can distinguish the sound of a bad HDD from a good one and this guy sounds pretty healthy, save the behavior when connecting.

The drive has not been dropped or anything physical like that. One thing that I did notice was that most of the pads and check points had gone slightly black - meaning that they had slightly corroded I suppose. I did clean up the connections on the board and on the disk side but alas, that had no effect in terms of behavior when connecting the drive to a computer. I have also tried with another cable and in most of the USB ports I have (including USB2).

The data on it is not extremely valuable, meaning life can and will go on without it, but it does have some sentimental value that I am willing to pay for and or spend time on.

Now my question is; does this sound like an internal problem or more of an USB problem to you? In your opinion, would it be worth to try and swap the board or just send it to a pro directly?

I managed to get some UVC View data while it was connected (attached file). The Life Guard Diagnostic would not recognize the disk at all.

Thank you in advance.

It is very unlikely this is a USB error. It is most likely an issue with some bad sectors and a common firmware issue with WD drives. Don't bother with a pcb swap. Since you are willing to pay, take it to a DR pro. It is likely an easy case for them at this point and should be a reasonable price. The more you mess with it, the more likely to lose the data forever.

I will add that there is a potential for DIY data recovery, possibly for free, but it would mean risking your data and losing it forever. If it is worth it, go for the pro.

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+1

Agree with all points.

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