Today my WD30EZRX made a rather strange sound.

Being terrified, I have disconnected it shortly after making an audio recording.
So, no diagnostics have been done at all yet. I thought I'd ask here first.

You can listen to it in this YouTube video.
I included a spectral frequency image of the audio,
as well as a photo of the drive label showing its specs.

http://youtu.be/pKVXFpJlphk

Tristan

P.S. I have an identical drive available, so I could easily swap circuit boards.

Sounds like some sort of mechanical issue, where the disks aren't spinning. Was it dropped?
Still in warranty it seems...

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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

Not dropped.

But I did very carefully reposition the drive just before the sound occurred first.
[ I should have written this in my original post. ]

So, perhaps one of the connectors malfunctioned momentarily . . .

I am not sure then. but I would say that that particular sound is a bit unusual (more OR slightly different than expected) for such a problem, if indeed that is the problem.

Need a solid eval by a specialist. Choose the specialist wisely.

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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

Thanks.

Any idea if it is safe to run diagnostics software?
Safe to swap circuit boards?
Or is this a case of: the more I run it, the more I damage it?

Does it make this sound when connected only to a power supply (not to a computer)? Can you hear the platters spin up at all? If not, does the motor get hot? I'd imagine that you'll find that disks are not spinning up, or that they do and then seem to stop. Sounds like you may have either a seized motor or stuck head. If you could answer my first questions I can point you in a direction and give you some information so you can verify.

Oh, to answer your other question. No, do not run diagnostic software against the drive as many of these (e.g. chkdsk) can cause damage. Also, if we get to the point where we are looking at a PCB swap then I can give you some info. as to what to check for compatibility. One thing you will have is on WD drives the ROM must be transferred to a new PCB in swaps.

As you proposed, I ran a test with a mere power supply, and also using a USB drive-duplicator (in its JBOD mode).

I notice three things:

1) The sound is identical. No platters spin up. The sound in the YouTube video is the only thing I hear.

2) After hearing the sound five times, it stops.
At the moment I cannot test how often the sound is audible when hooked up normally to a motherboard, because my PC is backing up my backup from 4 weeks ago, and is probably not done until tomorrow morning.

3) Using my lips to sense any temperature increase, the motor seems to, during these five revolutions, stay cold.


I really appreciate your technical support. I am open to discussing doing something in return.

( By the way: I have a pickup coil available, in case you want me to use that for something. )

Tristan

The most likely problem is the heads are positioned above the platters or are jammed into the ramp (more common). It could also be an unusual motor failure or maybe a PCB fault. If the motor loses a phase, it can fail to spin, but this drive sounds stuck.

If you have the same model drive, you can swap the PCB and if the drive spins up, the PCB has failed. If not, it's clean room time.

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http://www.datasaversllc.com

Pro's - read the next bit slowly so you dont injure your eyes when you roll them.

This is NOT Pro advice but has worked for me before.


If the data is not amazingly important, you could try tapping the drive quite sharply with your finger, at exactly startup time. If you dont do it crazily, there is a possibility you can get the platters to spin and copy off your data. Be ready to copy it, and dont dilly-dally.

If the data is important, then Im sure you know to take to a pro because every subsequent powerup to try things out can cause more damage.

No disrespect my friend, but after my eyes rolled back into their normal position, and I was able to see the keyboard once more, I wanted to opine that this is a very bad idea 99.99% of the time. Don't do it because heads simply being parked over the platters is unusual; and when this happens there is heads damage most of the time. If you feel like you're the lucky 0.01%, then go for it.

Jono

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http://www.datasaversllc.com

In my previous post I described what happened when attaching the drive to a mere power supply (or a USB-SATA interface).

Today I noticed that there is a slight difference when hooked up to a booting motherboard.
Again, it pauses after making the riddle sound five times, but, after silence of some 6 seconds, the sounds occurs again, and seems to continue from thereon for many times.

I need to wait another day or so with attempting a PCB swap, with or without a transferred ROM.
My good twin drive, the backup (I always buy drives in pairs), will be available then.

'Lt16', did I give the feedback you needed to suggest a next step?


[Any help is appreciated, also the 0.01% probable 'HaQue' mentions -- it worked for him.]


A hat tip to Utah, Atlanta and Adelaide,
and to user 'labtech', wherever he is.

I'm happy to learn something new and be proved wrong as need be.

So why not ask how many times the "tapping" procedure has worked on this 3 TB model drive?

Jono

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http://www.datasaversllc.com

Well, I swapped PCBs, and no difference.

( And luckily, the good PCB was not damaged in the process. )

We hear three very distinct sounds in the video,
and some minor rattle as well.
This rattle is not background noise;
I recorded in silence and with a professional microphone.

Does anybody recognise perhaps one of all these sounds?

Hi, definitely siezed motor or heads jam'ed prevents spinning.
The lid needs to be removed in cleanroom to be 100% sure.

_________________
Rescue IT Datarecovery service Sweden
Rescue IT Dataräddning Göteborg AB
http://www.rescue-it.se

To be clear - my suggestion (NOT recommendation) was never tested on THIS model, but on A hard drive. Definitely you should try every other technique available, and only MAYBE this one just before you bin it.

This is a precision piece of machinery with very high data density that cannot be jump-started in that way. You will only make matters worse, or if you are "lucky", it will do nothing at all.

Some "techniques" that we used to use in the past do not work on modern drives. We often see hard drives in the clean room that have been damaged by physical shock. We don't recommend it at all.

If your argument is that "he's going to bin it anyway", he'd be better off to remove the lid and try to understand the actual problem.

_________________
http://www.datasaversllc.com

Thanks jono, yes, you are 100% correct.

Better I retract everything and say listen to the guys with more hard drive experience. True I may have seen it "work" in whatever sense that meant at the time, but these guys know what they are talking about and I trust their judgement totally.

Topic is good to show that maybe you should not talk above your skillset!

Thanks guys for your help to the people that need it and to curb hacks like me!

cheers

seems it worked for some http://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=14351&start=60
though at the end the guy looks like he caused more damage trying it.

I still agree with the pro's and pretty much would advise strongly against it, ever.

YMMV, but YHDD will probably die.

Hello everyone

this is my first post in the forum.

My WD My book 3TB (WDBACW0030HBK-01) has WD Green (WD30EZRX-00DC0B0) inside. It shows exactly the same problem as first described by harlekeyn.

It was working fine. I ejected the drive from File explore and unplugged from USB2 port. I then connected it to USB3 port (on U3S6 Asus card). Switched it on. The drive appeared in file explore (win 8.1 pro) and I started to copy many files from PC to WD MY book disk.

After few seconds the File explorer froze and the drive made EXACTLY THE SAME sound as we hear in the video posted by harlekeyn (http://youtu.be/pKVXFpJlphk).

I removed the drive from WD My book case (dont care about the warranty) and connected it directly to SATA port on my PC. At BIOS POST, the PC just stops the boot and the HDD make the same strange sound with white LED flashing continuously.

please help and was anyone able to find the solution?
Harlekeyn? Have you found the solution?

any response will be appreciated.