Hi everyone,

This is Anthony from Greece.

I have a problem with my -new- WD drive, I have bought it on July of this year.
It is a Passport Ultra drive, 2TB. It used to work fine, I put my entire life there and then one day I had a very idiotic idea to connect it to my -also new- Smart TV (it demonstrates itself as "SUPER SMART TV" --- my a$$!

After that, the drive would not be recognized and after a few connects/disconnects now the drive started clicking. After a while it goes silent (which I guess is not a very good thing?).

I would appreciate any and all ideas and thank you in advance.

It will be an internal issue, so absolutely nothing you can do

I suggest you contact Northwind in this forum, he’s in Thessaloniki and should easily be able to handle this.

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PC Image Data Recovery
http://www.pcimage.co.uk

New!! HDD-PCB.COM for all your PCB and donor HDD requirements!

Hi pcimage

Thank you for the reply.
You're saying I need to go to a data recovery professional? Isn't there a way I could just make the drive alive again for a few minutes so I can get some very very important data out of it and then it can die a peaceful death?

I am based in Athens and I do not feel comfortable in shipping the drive away to Thessaloniki. Is there a website I can visit and call them? Are they known/reputable?

Again, thanks for any and all suggestions.

Every "click" can damage your data, so if data is important do not connect the drive any more.
Northwind has an office in Athens also

_________________
Digitalsupport Data Recovery
https://digitalsupport.dk

Agree. There is NOTHING you can do yourself, you’ll only damage it further, possibly beyond Recovery even by a pro.

Oops, forgot about Northwind office Athens

_________________
PC Image Data Recovery
http://www.pcimage.co.uk

New!! HDD-PCB.COM for all your PCB and donor HDD requirements!

What they said. Your best option is to contact Northwind.

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I am just a banned spammer, ignore me

Thanks for the suggestion guys

OP came in contact with us this morning and will bring the drive to our Athens lab later today. We're giving him a special HDDGuru discount

Let's see what we're dealing with here.
OP sounded very stressed out during the phone call.

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

Hi Boss ,
Northwind Is One Of The Best Professionals In The World In WDC Drives At Least

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Regards
Amarbir S Dhillon , Chandigarh Data Recovery Labs [India]
Logical,Semi Physical And Physical Data Recovery
Website-> http://www.chandigarhdatarecovery.com

Northwind

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Specialized in Physical Data Recovery

https://lifeguarddatarecovery.com

Thank you guys for your responses, it looks like these guys' fame preceeds them.

This is good, because I feel I'm in good hands.

I left my drive to their office on Friday.
They told me they will inform me of the results soon.
This is not an urgent case, I don't mind waiting as long as the result is good. This has over 1TB of pictrues and videos of my entire life, so it is very important.

Thanks every1, lets see how it goes.

Even though I didn't look at the drive, the engineer that did, says it stands good chances. Heads are bad but they look clean, which is very promising.

We'll get back to you with more details on Monday and then we'll go from there.
I'll take a look at your drive on Tuesday as well, when I'm in the Athens lab.

No worries, we'll do our best to get as much data as possible.

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

Well, even though I'm very satisfied with the overall professionalism, I found the price to be too high.

I had to go and pick up the drive and I will send it to another lab who offered me a price of at least 100-150 euros less, so i'm gonna try my luck with them.

It's not about the 100 extra, it's because I found their pricing very expensive and I'd rather go with someone else who can do it for less.

Sorry northwind guys, nothing personal against you.

Not a problem.
Best of luck.

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

OK, an update:
so I gave my drive to the other lab in Athens and accepted their price.

After a few days, they called me today and they said that they "changed needles" on the drive and that it didn't work.
They said the drive is completely dead and nothing can be done.

I called northwind again and asked to speak to Dimitri but I wasn't able to find him. I just want now to get a second opinion, if the drive is beyond help, then that would be extremely bad news.

I'm open to suggestions...

Often a higher cost is due to more expensive equipment, facilities, maintenance, tools, software etc... to be the best, you need to have the best tools, staff and experience which all comes at a cost to any recovery company, more so the ones with the best chance of getting back your data.

I imagine that this recovery, (having been already attempted elsewhere, potentially contaminated and, unless work was performed under the strictest of conditions with suitable parts and tools, maybe worse off than it was before the attempt) is now a lot more difficult and will likely need more time and attention than it would have first time around.

Adding to what @hddguy said, knowledge and experience also have a cost and are included in the price. Sometimes a tiny tidbit of knowledge or experience obtained can mean the difference between success and failure.

After the other shop worked in the drive ( I don´t know them, and will not call them good or bad. Maybe they don´t have experience in this specific situation. Maybe some other thing. ) it probably is in a worse situation .

So, as you stated you need the data, I honestly suggest you send it to Northwind again, and pay the price, whatever it is.

I´m not wanting to be mean to you, but many times quality involves higher prices. We suffer from this here in my country also, when people complain loudly about prices, take their business to some backalley shop, then have to pay double later for us to solve a problem that was easy in the beginning. Not only data recovery, have also seen customers having to throw away the computers ( purpose built computers, for controlling industrial machines ) they bought for a much lower price ( the guy called us thiefs ) when they didn´t work. They : "can we use something from these new computers ?" We : "Well, maybe the power cord ".

So, since OP decided to go public with everything that went down, I'd rather contribute.

I took a look at the drive.
Other lab opened it and attempted a head swap. It obviously failed.
To be honest, I can't say that the drive is butchered anyhow, but I could see dust inside.

I told OP that normally, when a drive is opened, we charge an opened-drive fee.

Our original quote to OP was less than 500 euros for this 2TB ShrekLT drive. He declined and went elsewhere where he was offered 100 euros less.

Now he came back and asks for an advice.
We decided to offer the same price as before plus the opened-drive fee, and this is my final effort/offer with this.

Client said OK and we're expecting his written acceptance.

That's all there is.

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

Nice to know. Let´s hope the contamination is minor and the data can be recovered.

So, I got a call today and they told me that the recovery was complete but the result is poor.

They're going to email me a list with the files to see what is the result.

I'm very unhappy the result is poor
but I think it's better than 0.

Hm?
Sometimes I find it very difficult to understand people.

I PERSONALLY called you and I PERSONALLY told you that the result is great, more than 99%.

Why are you saying the opposite?

And, if you had any doubts, why didn't you CALL US and ASK?

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