It is always pleasant and refreshing when customers listen

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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

Just an update, I received my new drive with almost all data inside, i am very happy

Thanks to everyone!!

Nice to hear that this forum and the professionals who write in it helped you.

I wonder if a heads issue is what I have as well. My wd20ears will go online for a brief moment, I can copy a few files, but then about 5-15 seconds later it goes offline and is clicking for a while. When I try to disable head park timer with wdidle3 I get a VSC message talking about Seek with a series of 2-number groups.

Should I post a new topic for this? I always try to avoid doing that.

High possibility it is a heads issue. But as always more testing is necessary.

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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 labtech. Is there any work I could do from here before contemplating a recovery service, like SA / Firmware work? There seems to be a lot of support for this particular drive, so I was hoping I might be able to try some PC-3000-similar work on this thing before giving up. I have hope because of being able to briefly see the data in fairly predictable intervals, but I understand I could have hit a wall already (my experience in recovery is pretty much just file/partition/etc recovery software). Thanks.

The pc3k/de complex is a hardware + software solution that costs few thousand dollars. It requires lots of knowledge and practice in order to properly make use of its functions.

Although a very experienced DR tech does not ultimately need such an advanced tool to determine if a disk drive has a heads issue, for 100% confirmation a heads testing tool is necessary. As far as I know, there is no cheap or free tool that supports this type of test.

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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 understood that pc3k is software with basically a PCI dongle. Someone on here mentioned it could be sold without the card and function the same, but that the card helps cut down on piracy, so I figured there were some SA / firmware procedures I might be able to perform to try to get somewhere. It sounds like you don't believe there's any way I can get this drive to give me more time than 5-15 seconds at a time to get the data off without physical intervention.

Here is the real deal: http://www.acelaboratory.com/pc3000.udma.php
I can't speak with regard to other software you have heard of.



Pretty confident to say that tampering with the SA and firmware will not help the situation as this does not seem to be the problem. If anything, with lack of expertise, playing with the drive's SA, which contains the bulk of the drive's firmware, can make things worse and potentially compromise any chance of ever recovering any data from this drive.

As I mentioned before, more advanced testing is necessary by a pro to isolate the exact issue(s).

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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

Okay. I've recommended Gillware to all my clients because they will not charge if they can't get the desired data off the drive, and I think they're around $500, but if you know of a service that you feel is as good or better that would be great! I know part of the cost depends on what needs to be done, so I guess I should ask who you think might be good if it is actually a heads issue.

A handful of places are good. Check the WD recovery partners page.

Prices vary from company to company, but not that much if the issue is known based on a solid evaluation. Generally speaking and without any reference to anybody you named, I doubt that any reputable specialized data recovery company will quote $500 for a 1TB or higher capacity drive with a heads issue. Maybe starting range, but I guess you will find out.

There may be some exceptions, but most reputable companies exercise the "no data-no fee" policy.

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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