Hey all. Thought I could come here and fix my HDD myself. But I see that things can get REALLY complicated. Hopefully there is a quick fix for my issue. If not, it simply isn't worth the time and/or money to recover my data, which was backed up six months ago anyway. I'd just be missing out on some personal pics and whatever media I've downloaded since then. But I do greatly appreciate any help. After reading over a few of your newbie threads I can see that it takes a lot of work to become knowledgeable in this area.

So I have a WDBACW0030HBK-NESN, being accessed via USB 2.0 on a Windows Vista 32-bit system. After 6 months of ownership, the drive suddenly stopped being readable. The behavior has deteriorated over the past week or so. Initially I could see it in My Computer and view the highest level of folders, and it would hang up when trying to open one of them, or copy one to another HDD. Later, while it would still show up in My Computer, it would hold up when I tried to access it at all. A friend loaned me his Zero Assumption Recovery software and during this time it could see the drive, but would hang up when trying to scan it. Now it doesn't show up in My Computer at all, although I do get the "new device connected noise" from Windows. ZAR can still see it, but it reads 0 bytes. For all of the above, the HDD light turns on, and some of the time but not all the time the disks spin up. It doesn't work in another PC either, and the power supply is fine.

Any advice? I'd thought I could give a new enclosure a shot but it seems the data is probably encrypted anyway (?), which means I'll have to go through a huge headache to get at it, in the process voiding my warranty. Again, this is just a few months of personal pics and downloaded junk. So nothing too important, but if I can spend just an afternoon or maybe a day recovering it...

Thanks!

Most probably with this Smartware hdd problem is either Bad Sectors or SA problems
remember out of the box u will get nothing

am afraid no DIY will help

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Kuwait Data Recovery - UNIX GTC
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Out of the box I will get nothing, meaning it will require rewriting the SA (or some such) and that's a whole ton of effort? Or meaning if I take it out of the enclosure my warranty goes kaput? Seems that both are the case anyway.

In any case, I think the only content that isn't replaceable is some personal photos that I may be able to recover off of my SD card. They've been deleted but I don't think the card has been written on much or at all since then. So I'll look into that.

Thanks!

What he meant by 'out the box you will get nothing' was that the USB/SATA adapter board inside the enclosure has a chip on it that encrypts/decrypts data on the drive. So if you remove the drive from the enclosure all the data will be encrypted anyway.

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...and I would have to go to a lot of trouble to learn how to and then get the information I need from WD or other sources to get through the encryption? Or pay someone. Or it's just impossible anyway? In any of those scenarios... I'll probably just send it in for replacement. Thanks a bunch. Lesson learned; I'll be smarter about backing up in the future.

Typically, WD does not provide information to users about how they can decrypt their data. It's proprietary information, so chances are basically 0%.

It is possible to get your data recovered, but it will cost quite a bit, more so because of the encryption issue on top of whatever problem(s) the drive itself has.

All you need is a professional evaluation by a competent company with solid credentials. Such a company is likely to be partnered with WD anyway, which is great for you because your warranty would be not be voided if they perform the evaluation/recovery. If you decide to take this route, make sure you send in the entire external with the power cord.

Was there a password set on the external with the SmartWare software?

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Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

No password set. I looked into one of the companies WD links to and got an estimate around $1k. I'll take the loss of vacation pics and stuff I can re-download :/

Don't mind me asking, but why just stop at one?

Also, what would have been your budget for this recovery?

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Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

Stop at one backup? I probably won't. I have a 1 TB that more than holds the most important stuff. I'll get a replacement for this 3 TB, and I'll probably buy another one.

As for how much... probably $250 tops. It's just some personal pics of a great vacation (with the good ones in lo res on Facebook, and friend's pics that I'm sure they'll copy to me), and bunch of downloaded stuff it'll take time to get back.

He meant why stop at one company and not ask others for a quote..

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Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners

Northwind is right.

Yes sorry, unfortunately $250 would not cut it.

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Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

I recall that someone in a similar situation decided that it would be more economical to retake his vacation and reshoot his pics. I'm not sure how much of a vacation you could have for $1K, though.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Depends on the location.
If you live in Europe and vacation was in Fiji, then definitely not.

But if you're in Australia and vacation was in New Zealand?

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http://www.northwind.gr
SandForce SSD Recovery
Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners