coolproductz wrote:
Dropped a MyBook WD 8TB Helium Drive onto slate floor from 2M ... I attempted to plug the drive in to see if it worked .. all I heard was a high pitched sound then nothing. The drive still spins. I'm not sure if the platters are scratched or not - I think they may not be?
I took the drive to Ontrack which I believe is worldwide and they said there was mechanical failure (I knew that already!) and no one in Hong Kong has the equipment to open & repair. And they said that even if they could repair the hardware, the data is encrypted by WD, so the data would be unrecoverable - is this last part correct?
I'm thinking of getting an xray of the HE drive to see what position the arms are at and if they are mangled. I see somewhere on this forum that this sort of drive has been unscrewed/disassembled successfully ..
My next question is - if the arms just need placing back in the correct rest position, if the drive is opened in a vacuum environment, and then reassembled with no He inside, would the drive work enough to get back the data?
The other idea is to drop the disc from the same height the opposite end to see if this helps!
Any advice please ..
So after a few months of trying to get my data back from my helium drive .. still not successful.
First, I sent my Helium drive to Ontrack - they said immediately they cannot work on helium filled drives. I then sent my helium drive to a company in the UK called datarecoveryspecialists.co.uk and also known as
www.fields-data-recovery.co.uk. I had a long conversation on the phone and they convinced me that they have equipment & experience to recover data from helium filled drives. So after the initial free tests, they were not able to recover any data. So after paying them GBP 550+VAT (I did not pay the VAT as I do not live in the UK) They said the tests would include the following: This is the quote from the email below:
"The good news is we have a plan of action to retrieve this data, the bad news is standard recovery techniques have been unsuccessful is retrieving usable data.
Our Engineering Team has come up with a course of action that will result in the best chance of retrieving your data. If you choose to go ahead with this course, A level 5 Engineer will be assigned to your media and work through all possible processes to gain access to your data which will include the following:
· Usage and access to all parts available in our library, purchasing of parts externally is included also.
· Forensic analysis scans to ‘rebuild’ all bad sectors
· Complete sector by sector rebuild of the image
· Dedicated PC 3000 for logical issues
· As much lab time as need to exhaust recovery options.
We have a very good track record in recovering data from situations such as this, but of course we do not know how much if any data until these processes are completed. Our engineers have told us they believe this job has a high likelihood of success. But we cannot stress enough that there are risks of retrieving no data."
Basically I do not know exactly what procedure they uses, as I only got sketchy updates. But they did say they replaced the heads twice at no additional cost. Eventually they did inform they managed to recover 75% corrupted imaged, which they did not include when I asked for the return of the drive.
I had asked on several occasions, if a helium environment was used .. I never got an answer .. I also never got images or video to show progress.
So a couple of questions : If the drive had new heads installed, and a 75% corrupted image was somehow recovered, would that have been a readable image if the helium environment was used? And .. if helium environment was not used, even with new heads installed, would the arms at the wrong distance above the platters, damage the platters more.
The helium disc is with my cousin in the UK and so if anyone reading this knows anyone else who has REAL EXPERIENCE with helium drives, ley me know.
Is the data on this helium drive still recoverable??
Thank you!
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