Hey there,

I'm fairly new when it comes to data recovery, however I'm trying to learn more, and finding this site is a big help, a lot of good information on here.

Now, my problem. Someone has given me their hard drive to recover data for them. If I plug it in normally to a PC, BIOS does not detect it, in fact it hangs a bit at boot, so it seems like it is having trouble reading the make of the drive.

I downloaded the Data Lifeguard Diagnostic software for this model and ran it, the first time I got Error Code 120 (Drive not Found), I moved it over to a different sata port and ran it again, this time I got Error code 201 (Non-WD Drive) and taken from WD's site as the description:

"The drive does not have a WD serial number. This error can occur on non-Western Digital drives. It may also happen when the wrong version of diagnostic utility is used. It is also possible to see this error on defective Western Digital drives."

So it seems to me like the drive is likely toast, and I'm not sure what, if any options there are?

One thing I do notice is if I use a USB->SATA connector and plug it in, it does show up in Disk Management under windows as an unknown disk, and asks me to initialize it. I haven't tried, since I want the data, but from what I hear from the person who gave me the drive, he tried and it didn't let him.

It also shows as "USB Device" in device manager under disk drives.

Is there any hope in salvaging this over the USB cable? Or is it just detecting the USB bridge as a disk drive?

Thanks for any help, I hope I didn't leave anything out.

You came to a good place.

If you going to do more of this, forget about BIOS and lifeguard.

Install MHDD, this is the home of MHDD and then report here again what you see.

Does the disk power? Is there any unusual noises coming from the disk? Have you tried accessing with MHDD to see what error registers are displayed? does the spindle stop?

It is impossible at this stage to give any clues to the problem, based on your description it could be a number of things. You need to give more details relating to the disks behaviour and maybe someone can offer some advice.

If your friends data is important, you may want to start shopping around for some quotes. No offence intended, but some of the most difficult DR cases are ones that were 'given to a friend' first....

Thanks guys,

no offense taken. I don't think the files are terribly important to him, important enough to want me to try, but not important enough to take to a professional. And I want to learn a lot more about this, so I figured I would take a stab.

I'm downloading MHDD right now and will report back momentarily! Thanks again

EDIT: In answer to your question, no, there aren't any noises coming from the drive, and yes, the drive does power on and I can feel it spin up.

Well, I've ran MHDD, and I'm seeing what the documentation means with you'll need a couple hours with it to fully understand it.

I'm unfortunately at work, so can't spend a lot of time learning it, so I guess fully learning it will have to wait until tonight, but as of right now, when I run port and it lists all the ports, it's not showing any hard drives, they all are showing as empty, I'm guessing that's a bad sign, but hopefully I'm using MHDD incorrectly...but the more I read the more it's looking bad

Is there any hope in that it is somewhat recognized over a USB->SATA adapter?

Yep.

With MHDD you will need to have the BIOS in ATA or IDE or legacy mode for it to detect any drives. AHCI doesn't work and USB definitely doesn't work.

_________________
You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

I've looked around in the BIOS on this machine (cheap Acer PC) that the drive is plugged into. I'm not seeing the options for changing that, only to set the sata controller to compatible (cd drive isnt detected in this mode), or enhanced (default).

BIOS does not detect the drive.. isn't that where you would normally set it to ATA, ACHI, etc.. on the drive in BIOS?

Thanks for your response.

Yeah, compatible is probably what you want. Weird that it doesn't see the optical drive in that setting though

_________________
You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

Hmm.. I tried setting to compatible again, the optical drive is definitely not working with compatible mode.

I can try on my home PC (one of the optical devices is IDE) and see if I can change the settings around in BIOS to legacy, hopefully then it will see this drive. I'll know in about 2 hours and report back.

Thanks.

It could be that Windows is detecting the USB-SATA bridge chip inside the enclosure, rather than the HD behind it.

What does Microsoft's UVCView tell you?

http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/USB_ID ... ew.x86.exe

Hey, thanks for the tip! Here is the result, looks like it's just the bridge?

English product name: "USB to ATA/ATAPI Bridge"

ConnectionStatus:
Current Config Value: 0x01 -> Device Bus Speed: High
Device Address: 0x02
Open Pipes: 2

===>Endpoint Descriptor<===
bLength: 0x07
bDescriptorType: 0x05
bEndpointAddress: 0x81 -> Direction: IN - EndpointID: 1
bmAttributes: 0x02 -> Bulk Transfer Type
wMaxPacketSize: 0x0200 = 0x200 max bytes
bInterval: 0x00

===>Endpoint Descriptor<===
bLength: 0x07
bDescriptorType: 0x05
bEndpointAddress: 0x02 -> Direction: OUT - EndpointID: 2
bmAttributes: 0x02 -> Bulk Transfer Type
wMaxPacketSize: 0x0200 = 0x200 max bytes
bInterval: 0x00

===>Device Descriptor<===
bLength: 0x12
bDescriptorType: 0x01
bcdUSB: 0x0200
bDeviceClass: 0x00 -> This is an Interface Class Defined Device
bDeviceSubClass: 0x00
bDeviceProtocol: 0x00
bMaxPacketSize0: 0x40 = (64) Bytes
idVendor: 0x152D = JMicron Technology Corp.
idProduct: 0x2338
bcdDevice: 0x0100
iManufacturer: 0x01
English (United States) "JMicron"
iProduct: 0x02
English (United States) "USB to ATA/ATAPI Bridge"
iSerialNumber: 0x05
English (United States) "000000000000"
bNumConfigurations: 0x01

===>Configuration Descriptor<===
bLength: 0x09
bDescriptorType: 0x02
wTotalLength: 0x0020 -> Validated
bNumInterfaces: 0x01
bConfigurationValue: 0x01
iConfiguration: 0x04
English (United States) "USB Mass Storage"
bmAttributes: 0xC0 -> Bus Powered
MaxPower: 0x01 = 2 mA

===>Interface Descriptor<===
bLength: 0x09
bDescriptorType: 0x04
bInterfaceNumber: 0x00
bAlternateSetting: 0x00
bNumEndpoints: 0x02
bInterfaceClass: 0x08 -> This is a Mass Storage USB Device Interface Class
bInterfaceSubClass: 0x06
bInterfaceProtocol: 0x50
iInterface: 0x06
English (United States) "MSC Bulk-Only Transfer"

===>Endpoint Descriptor<===
bLength: 0x07
bDescriptorType: 0x05
bEndpointAddress: 0x81 -> Direction: IN - EndpointID: 1
bmAttributes: 0x02 -> Bulk Transfer Type
wMaxPacketSize: 0x0200 = 0x200 max bytes
bInterval: 0x00

===>Endpoint Descriptor<===
bLength: 0x07
bDescriptorType: 0x05
bEndpointAddress: 0x02 -> Direction: OUT - EndpointID: 2
bmAttributes: 0x02 -> Bulk Transfer Type
wMaxPacketSize: 0x0200 = 0x200 max bytes
bInterval: 0x00

I have a similar generic enclosure:
http://www.inki1.com/product_view.asp?id=851

Mine identifies in the same way, with or without a HD attached. Some enclosures won't enumerate at all if a HD is not present. Others will identify themselves with a product name rather than the HD's model number, eg OEM units such as Seagate FreeAgent or Maxtor OneTouch.

I think all you can say in your case is that the bridge chip has sanity.

You could examine the drive with a disc editor in read-only mode.

HxD - Freeware Hex Editor and Disk Editor:
http://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd/

Sectors 0 and 63 will be the MBR and boot sector, respectively (unless partitioned in GPT mode).

BTW, my enclosure has instructions for "whopping the product properly".

"if u whop it without stopping it this may cause your computer to crash or lose some value data".

Please take note.

Whopping... LOL

My USB bridge is actually just an IDE/SATA --> USB cable I ordered from china for $8 .. it must have the same chip as your enclosure!

I'm willing to try the disk editor, but if BIOS/MHDD isn't seeing my drive, I'm not sure how the disk editor will, unless you mean use it on the "device" windows seems to think my USB cable is..which I've also further confirmed is just the cable, even with the hard drive not powered on connected to it, it still shows up in disk manager wanting to initialize as an unknown disk