Recovery of Sony "HD-B1LEU"

Hi folks!

I'm more of a software than a hardware guy. In any case, my girlfriend has a failing/failed "Sony HD-B1" she bought some years ago, and is learning the "don't keep any single copies of your data" lesson... I'd like to help her try to recover the device if possible.

The symptom is (second-hand information right now) that Windows gives some sort of error like "device error". The enclosure light apparently flashes but I don't know if the drive actually spins up or not.

I don't have the device with me yet so I haven't been able to run any diagnostics myself, but I will hopefully post pictures later today.

Her order originally was for HD-SL1BEU, but apparently the store shipped her a HD-B1LEU. I haven't checked if they only differ in color, I'm just mentioning this for completeness.

I haven't been able to find any teardowns online to determine what the actual physical disk inside the enclosure is, or what the adapter circuitry is.
As far as I can tell, there is nowhere online that these are for sale anymore if a board swap is needed.

Additional info:
Date on sticker: 2018-09
Something that looks like a serial number: D8TL0T1891129C9
Under an "IC" logo: MSIP-REI-SOK-HD-B1

Is there anything we can do? / What should I do?

Thanks for any help!

Best to open the HDD and use SATA to see if you can clone the HDD. Try: https://www.hddsuperclone.com.
Most likely a 7mm Seagate (Rosewood) will live in there; possibly a Toshiba.

https://www.sony-asia.com/electronics/s ... ifications

OK, I now have access to the device. I've hooked it up to a Linux machine.

It appears to power on and there is a very faint hum (though I have a lot of background noise here.).
There is no clicking or other obvious failure noise.

The LED flashes, and the device and even some partition information appears visible in the verbose `blkid` output (`blkid -O`) .

So, it seems like the device didn't fully crash and burn.

Here is the dmesg output while I attach the device while it is still in it's enclosure - I powered off the device with `udisksctl power-off` shortly afterwards;

Code:: [444691.826965] usb 3-1: new SuperSpeed Gen 1 USB device number 3 using xhci_hcd [444691.840918] usb 3-1: New USB device found, idVendor=054c, idProduct=0b7e, bcdDevice=66.16 [444691.840920] usb 3-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3 [444691.840921] usb 3-1: Product: Hard Drive [444691.840922] usb 3-1: Manufacturer: Sony [444691.840923] usb 3-1: SerialNumber: A2712891129C9 [444691.843732] usb-storage 3-1:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected [444691.843877] scsi host3: usb-storage 3-1:1.0 [444696.710512] scsi 3:0:0:0: Direct-Access Sony Hard Drive 5438 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6 [444696.711052] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] 1953525164 512-byte logical blocks: (1.00 TB/932 GiB) [444696.711422] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off [444696.711425] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 23 00 00 00 [444696.711757] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA [444696.981971] sdc: sdc1 [444696.987803] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI disk [444698.159658] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE cmd_age=0s [444698.159661] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Sense Key : Illegal Request [current] [444698.159663] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Add. Sense: Invalid field in cdb [444698.159665] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 00 5f 3f 90 00 01 00 00 [444698.159668] blk_update_request: critical target error, dev sdc, sector 6242192 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x80700 phys_seg 32 prio class 0 [444700.548857] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_ERROR driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE cmd_age=2s [444700.548861] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Sense Key : Hardware Error [current] [444700.548862] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Add. Sense: No additional sense information [444700.548864] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 00 5f 40 88 00 00 01 00 [444700.548867] blk_update_request: I/O error, dev sdc, sector 6242440 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x0 phys_seg 1 prio class 0 [444700.548873] Buffer I/O error on dev sdc1, logical block 6240392, async page read [444702.826714] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_ERROR driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE cmd_age=2s [444702.826717] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Sense Key : Hardware Error [current] [444702.826719] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Add. Sense: No additional sense information [444702.826721] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 00 5f 40 89 00 00 07 00 [444702.826724] blk_update_request: I/O error, dev sdc, sector 6242441 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x0 phys_seg 7 prio class 0 [444702.826730] Buffer I/O error on dev sdc1, logical block 6240393, async page read [444702.826732] Buffer I/O error on dev sdc1, logical block 6240394, async page read [444702.826734] Buffer I/O error on dev sdc1, logical block 6240395, async page read [444702.826735] Buffer I/O error on dev sdc1, logical block 6240396, async page read [444702.826737] Buffer I/O error on dev sdc1, logical block 6240397, async page read [444702.826738] Buffer I/O error on dev sdc1, logical block 6240398, async page read [444702.826740] Buffer I/O error on dev sdc1, logical block 6240399, async page read [444705.126724] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_ERROR driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE cmd_age=2s [444705.126728] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Sense Key : Hardware Error [current] [444705.126729] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Add. Sense: No additional sense information [444705.126731] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 00 5f 40 88 00 00 01 00 [444705.126734] blk_update_request: I/O error, dev sdc, sector 6242440 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x0 phys_seg 1 prio class 0 [444705.126740] Buffer I/O error on dev sdc1, logical block 6240392, async page read [444707.749099] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_ERROR driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE cmd_age=2s [444707.749103] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Sense Key : Hardware Error [current] [444707.749105] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Add. Sense: No additional sense information [444707.749107] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 00 5f 40 89 00 00 07 00 [444707.749109] blk_update_request: I/O error, dev sdc, sector 6242441 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x0 phys_seg 7 prio class 0 [444707.749115] Buffer I/O error on dev sdc1, logical block 6240393, async page read [444707.749117] Buffer I/O error on dev sdc1, logical block 6240394, async page read [444707.749119] Buffer I/O error on dev sdc1, logical block 6240395, async page read [444707.749120] Buffer I/O error on dev sdc1, logical block 6240396, async page read [444707.749122] Buffer I/O error on dev sdc1, logical block 6240397, async page read [444707.749123] Buffer I/O error on dev sdc1, logical block 6240398, async page read [444707.749125] Buffer I/O error on dev sdc1, logical block 6240399, async page read [444710.038064] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_ERROR driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE cmd_age=2s [444710.038067] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Sense Key : Hardware Error [current] [444710.038069] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Add. Sense: No additional sense information [444710.038071] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 00 5f 40 88 00 00 01 00 [444710.038073] blk_update_request: I/O error, dev sdc, sector 6242440 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x0 phys_seg 1 prio class 0 [444710.038079] Buffer I/O error on dev sdc1, logical block 6240392, async page read [444712.315675] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_ERROR driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE cmd_age=2s [444712.315679] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Sense Key : Hardware Error [current] [444712.315681] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Add. Sense: No additional sense information [444712.315685] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 00 5f 40 89 00 00 07 00 [444712.315687] blk_update_request: I/O error, dev sdc, sector 6242441 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x0 phys_seg 7 prio class 0 [444712.315693] Buffer I/O error on dev sdc1, logical block 6240393, async page read [444712.315696] Buffer I/O error on dev sdc1, logical block 6240394, async page read [444862.828378] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] Synchronizing SCSI cache [444862.972877] usb 3-1: USB disconnect, device number 3

With regards to physical information, after some moderately nasty work popping off the enclosure (I expected worse TBH, originally I wasn't sure if I'd be able to open it without excessive force) I successfully extracted the drive. After sufficient shoving of screwdrivers into the seam between the halves of the enclosure, I managed to start getting the internal plastic arm things to start popping off.

The disk is a Toshiba:

Code:: DISK DRIVE MQ04ABF100 DRIVE REV AZA AA00/JU000U DC+5V 1.0A DATE:21AUG2018 S/N 88LEP3TLT V7E HDKCB88AZA01

In the next posts I'll attach pictures and dmesg and smartctl output of the device directly attached to a SATA port, after I manage to hook it up to a machine somewhere.

(Out of curiosity - does it ever happen that partition information is cached in the adapter device? )

clarification: open the hard drive Case not the drive itself! :-)

@HaQue:

Haha, yes of course I opened the enclosure, not the drive.

Of course, it definitely doesn't hurt to be precise when things are on the line.

Currently I'm at the point where I've compiled HDDSuperClone and I'm reading the documentation.

HaQue wrote:clarification: open the hard drive Case not the drive itself!

Yup +1.

Ok, so I've done several things now. I'll write some notes up later. In any case, HDDSuperClone seems pretty cool, and I currently seem to have it successfully pulling data off the device, completion in about two hours in theory.

I've thrown testdisk at the image file to see if it can see anything yet, but either I'm holding it wrong or it doesn't see any partitions, which is odd. There is definitely data there in the hex dump, and `strings` finds strings, so its not corrupted.

Maybe the bad blocks near the partition table? I don't know enough about low level layout at this point. Anyway, just uninformed speculation / learning.

We will see once / if the clone succeeds.

How common are controllers gone bad?

It is very disorienting that posts show up when they were posted and not in the order that they actually appeared in the thread... i.e. my posts need to be approved by a moderator, and people are replying to the thread when they don't see my replies yet...

It sounds like the hard drive inside the Sony HD-B1 enclosure may have failed. Unfortunately, if the drive is not spinning up, it is unlikely that any data can be recovered from it. The best option, in this case, may be to send the drive to a professional data recovery service, which can attempt to recover the data from the failing drive. These services can be expensive, but they may be able to recover the data if it is still recoverable.

Ok, so it turns out the moderation issue was my fault, for using a throwaway email.

I'm now in the process of supercloning the internal drive of the laptop that _this_ external drive was being used with.
I hope it's just some kind of coincidental software corruption.

Windows isn't booting and it's running into some kind of issue that it can't repair.

Could the laptop for some reason be corrupting/killing drives? I would expect the USB interface to somewhat protect the external drive?
Do we need to get rid of the laptop?

I'll start a new thread if it's not just a software issue.

I think I've made a lot of progress. I've imaged both drives.

1. logbook:

My current issue is that I can't boot the second drive, which contains a Windows 10 Pro operating system, because HDDSuperClone wasn't able to recover a 4096 byte block of data smack in the middle of the SYSTEM registry hive. This means that there is 4096 bytes of zeros at that location. (I only figured this out later.)

After I realized I could disable the automatic repair boot loop (which wasn't doing anything useful) with bcdedit , I actually managed to get an error code from the kernel, 0xc0000225 , and a statement that there were issues with the system hive. (I need to attach screenshots later.)

This is consistent with https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troub ... leshooting failing at

Code:: Windows NT OS Kernel: The kernel loads into memory the system registry hive and other drivers that are marked as BOOT_START.

It was at this point that I realized I forgot to use ddru_ntfsfindbad to find which files contained the blocks HDDSuperClone wasn't able to recover. One was insignificant, the other was the system hive.

2. Where to go from here?

I just used the default HDDSuperClone settings.

a)
Is there some way I can make HDDSuperClone or some other tool try harder to recover the data? If partial data can be easily recovered, that is probably a lot easier than trying to reconstruct the missing registry data?

Is there anything I can do to read back possibly corrupt information from the drive? (Can I tell the drive I want the data even if it thinks it's bad?)

b)
Is there anything I can do about possible recovering some version of the missing information from the registry hive or the registry transaction logs?
Is there any way I can find out which keys are missing?

HiveX is able to read the corrupt hive in it's heuristic mode. regedit can load the hive, and I tried re-exporting it, but I wasn't able to get that to boot. I'm not sure if I did something wrong, I might need to take another look at that.

It's not clear if the kernel is rejecting the hive because it notices that the file is corrupt and doesn't even try to use it, or whether it's specifically trying to read corrupt keys and failing. However from looking at the hive file with a hex editor, I think the zero-d data is in a section containing driver information, which would be consistent with failing to boot.

A completely unrelated exercise: Is there a way to get the recovery environment to allow troubleshooting operations that require an administrator account, by somehow enabling the administrator account? In my case I couldn't do any of them because it told me there are no administrator accounts on the machine. I tried two registry hacking methods from the windows installer environment (shift-f10 to get a terminal) to enable the special administrator account, but they didn't seem to do anything.

I forgot to mention, I'm going for the hardcore solutions because there are no RegBack (for some interval, Windows used to make registry backups, but no longer does) backups, and no system restore points.

Furthermore this is more useful and interesting and didactic than just reinstalling Windows. (One may argue however, whether knowing more about Windows internals and how terrible the lack of public documentation is, is a good or a bad thing...)

I started typing a post (more later):

Code:: I took a closer look with a hex editor and it _seems_ that a contiguous section of registry keys is missing between SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\vwifibus and SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\WaaSMedicSvc . None of these look critical to the boot process, so I'm going to take another look at trying to rebuild the hive via load/export.

I've successfully booted the machine.

The short version is that I "cut around" the problem via export-delete-import. I used Registry Explorer v2.0.0.0, but maybe regedit would also have worked - I didn't check.

- I used notepad++ find/replace to adjust the import path in the .reg file exported via Registry Explorer,
In the windows installer shift-f10 shell environment:
- deleted the superset key of the corruption (Services)
- and then imported with regedit with the hive mounted

One more thing that needs to be fixed (I could be more thorough about this with more time), is that when re-importing the registry keys, permissions need to be fixed on the newly created parent key, otherwise various services will have issues starting. The only reason I figured this out is because the Dhcp-client server would error with 0x5, which is apparently Permission Denied.

I just added full permissions for the Everyone entity. This is of course, not the best idea, but it worked.

I was going to post a lot of accumulated shell histories and logs , but then the work machine OS crashed during a SATA hotplug operation, so that's partially out the window. So anyway, I will post more details eventually.

Recovery of Sony "HD-B1LEU"

Recovery of Sony "HD-B1LEU"

Re: Recovery of Sony "HD-B1LEU"

Re: Recovery of Sony "HD-B1LEU"

Re: Recovery of Sony "HD-B1LEU"

Re: Recovery of Sony "HD-B1LEU"

Re: Recovery of Sony "HD-B1LEU"

Re: Recovery of Sony "HD-B1LEU"

Re: Recovery of Sony "HD-B1LEU"

Re: Recovery of Sony "HD-B1LEU"

Re: Recovery of Sony "HD-B1LEU"

Re: Recovery of Sony "HD-B1LEU"

Re: Recovery of Sony "HD-B1LEU"

Re: Recovery of Sony "HD-B1LEU"

Re: Recovery of Sony "HD-B1LEU"

Re: Recovery of Sony "HD-B1LEU"