Hi, I have a WD My Passport 2TB and suddenly it got RAW. Windows is asking to format the drive. But I have so many files on it. I've tried using some data recovery softwares but I cant make it to be scanned 100% because the software crashes. The HDD also has badsectors when I scan it using HD Tune.
Can someone here know how do I recover my data or atleast restore the HDD partition without scanning?
Is it possible to create an image of a RAW HDD to make the recovery easier?
Thanks in Advance.

You can try using DDRescue on a Linux machine to make an image of the drive.

However you need to know that your drive has physical problems and anything you do to it from a DIY standpoint may (and probably will) make it worse. If the data is important to you, it should go to a professional data recovery company.

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HDD, SSD, Flash and RAID Data Recovery
Founder of The Data Recovery Professionals Group

Totally agree with this.

You could also try Hdd super clone. But be full aware that DIY will quite possibly destroy the data permanently beyond even pro recovery, but it’s your data so it’s your choice!

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PC Image Data Recovery
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Well,
+1 To Seans Advice ,Not My Friend DDRecovery Advice ,DDRescue Is No comparision To HDD SuperClone In Todays Times ,Zero Comparision Even Its Based on DDRescue .To The Guy who has a problem ,Its become raw as windows cannot mount the file system ,If HDD Superclone can do something try it Alternatively if data is critical Give it to someone in USA ,Our friend DDrecovery is In States and he does a damn good job with Data recovery cases .

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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

I have not tested HDDSuperclone for a while. I will take another look. Thanks Amarbir.

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HDD, SSD, Flash and RAID Data Recovery
Founder of The Data Recovery Professionals Group

Well,
He Has Some Videos with Another Software That He is Using In Conjuction For This And The Combination is Deadly Boss ,Try it .

Ps : Other Tool is DMDE

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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

That's why those softwares crash. HDTune can also indicate how many bad sectors have been detected, without a new scan, just go to the “Health” tab and check in particular the fields “Reallocated sector count” and “Current pending sector count”. If you can, do a screenshot and post it here. (If using the free 2.55 version, you have to make two screenshots, as the window can't be resized. Or use CrystalDiskInfo instead.) Do nothing else and unplug the drive right away.


It can be done or at least attempted when a drive is in good physical condition, which is not the case here. You should not attempt to write anything at all to that drive in that condition. And if you attempt to read, every byte being successfully read has to be secured right away to a healthy device. When attempting to scan it with recovery softwares (which do not actually recover until the last step which is the extraction of the identified files and folders), you only stressed it some more (and probably increased the number of bad sectors in the process) without securing a single byte.


That is indeed the best course of action (a raw image or a clone), if you're 100% sure that you're willing to take the chance of doing it on your own and risk losing it all.
But it's even more risky if you have no experience whatsoever and don't know precisely what you're doing, and how, and why. That's the kind of skills you should try to acquire just when you desperately need them.
The names of the best free tools available for cloning / imaging a defective HDD have been provided above : ddrescue, HDDSuperClone (both work in a Linux environment, if you have no familiarity with the Linux environment that's one more hurdle). The author of the latter is a member here (“maximus”) and may provide guidance if you need and ask nicely and pray to Joe Pesci. He released a custom-made Lubuntu ISO with HDDSuperClone and other useful tools.

The main criterium to decide if it's worth the try is : how many bad sectors are there currently ? If it's less than 100, the odds of success are generally very good ; if it's in the hundreds, it might be tricky but doable ; if it's in the thousands, it might be a recipe for disaster – but it could also go surprisingly smoothly. But if it's really important, irreplacable data, you might not want to take chances.


@Amarbir

Well, I don't know if anyone ever dared to mention it, but have you ever tried to type, uh, normally, in lower-case letters, with upper-case letters only where there should be, and spaces after punctuation signs, instead of before ? It's so much more painful to read...

As for HDDSuperClone + DMDE, it would involve purchasing a license for HDDSuperClone Pro + a license for DMDE, if someone is willing to pay about $250 for a DIY job with low odds of success, might as well pay $500 to get it done by someone with the proper tools and skills and experience to do it properly.

you could download a trial version of winhex and check if the hdd gives any data at all. It might give all zeroes in case it has a charger drive inside and something went wrong with the translator. It might be worth checking before you clone 2TB of 00s.
pepe

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Adatmentés - Data recovery

I tried the PC3000 PBA read on an SMR drive yesterday with translator failure. It does see data. Have not had a chance to experiment further yet.

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HDD, SSD, Flash and RAID Data Recovery
Founder of The Data Recovery Professionals Group

yeah, but sometimes we can recover the original translator and get it work even in such cases, but it needs some additional knowledge.

Here the question is wether the OP has this problem or something else.

pepe

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Adatmentés - Data recovery

There is currently no way to recover the secondary translator (unless the drive was reading when first assessed). Isn't that why PBA access was created?

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HDD, SSD, Flash and RAID Data Recovery
Founder of The Data Recovery Professionals Group

I do have a method to overcome some problems with 190, which can help when it does not get loaded properly. It's not about recovering a completely lost translator. But when you think it is lost, it might not be perfectly true.

pepe

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Adatmentés - Data recovery

UFS explorer Pro imager better than both of them.
Have you guys read change log for the last versions? :
Some of them:
.....
* Imager: saving third jump size, added logging of segments for forward imaging;
* Added warning message for defects in Linux software version;
* Fixed bug in processing segments using "bitmap" of defects.
** When disk is opened in WRITE mode under Windows, software unmounts volumes to remove write protection;
** Software events log:
* Log button to main window form;
* Floating window for log;
* Add logging of crash reports;
* Log control on floating window (details, save to file, config, clear);
* Log disk detect events (access, read etc.);
* Log IO errors (defects);
* Log of some of VFS events;
* Blinking notification of warning/error.
** Popup message when disk defect is detected;
....
** Support of defects provider storage via "cached storage";
** Optional "summary" line to copying log (in checkbox mode or when folder or multiple objcts are copied);
** Added option to save files with read errors (error is logged, unreadable blocks are filled with fixed pattern);
** Option to move file to $BadFiles folder when file is "copied with read error";
....
* Support of direct chaining to Read-once;
* Data access configuration (method, timeouts);
** File system scan with five options of handling existing file system;
** File system indexing is changed from popup window to tab;
** Added option to 'stop' drive to disk context menu (when drive works in ATA/SCSI mode);
** Added defects emulation on Read-once and SDLSparse virtual storages;
** Disk imager function (read method/timeout, direction, jump settings etc.);
* optional "safe zone" test;
* saving map of defect blocks;
* use FS map for used space imaging;
* ATA mode imager;
* SCSI mode imager;
* copying error log;
* removable warning popup about imaging warning;
** Ability to tell DDI to image by bitmap
** DDI indication to disk;
** Support of split DDI format (meta+data disks);
** Ability to select a group of files and signal disk imager to clone them without having to save them out

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Angel Data Recovery