Recovering data from WD EARS drive

[Freedom Kira]

So, another coworker's problem.

He's not sure what happened either. Basically, one day he came home to find that his WD 1.5TB MyBook external drive was unplugged, which was apparently unusual. He brought it to work to see if he could access the files, and found that his computer wasn't picking up the drive.

We popped open the case (doesn't have any kind of indicator) and found a 1.5TB Caviar Green EARS drive. Took the drive out, and today we put the drive into an enclosure I had sitting around and tried putting that into the computer. Took a while (like two minutes), but the drive was detected, and so was the ATA/ATAPI bridge, but it shows up as an unallocated disk. Device manager picks up the drive and the enclosure properly, but does not assign a drive letter to the disk. Safely Remove Hardware just sees the ATA/ATAPI bridge.

What we would like to do is recover the data that is stored on the disk, then reformat the disk and put the data back on. It's only got about 200MB worth of photos. He was intending to back it up but never got around to it.

From my understanding, EARS drives are a bit... different to work with, mostly because of the 4KB sector sizes. So I'm not certain that just any data recovery tool will work. But since the drive is detected, the battle is probably half complete.

I had him try PC Recovery for now. Any other tools to recommend?

[kureshii]

The usual data recovery tools should work. Though the EARS drives use 4k sectors internally, the firmware only exposes 512B sectors to the OS, so they effectively are 512B-sector drives as far as the OS is concerned. ‘True’ 4k-sector drives won’t be out in the market so soon, at least not until proper 4k-sector support is widespread in all major OSes.

The only concern is decreased write performance due to unaligned sectors, but this does not affect basic hard drive operation. Your usual data recovery tools should work just as well on EARS as on the older EADS drives.

[Freedom Kira]

Awesome, thanks.

He's been running some odd HDD tools. The latest one he's trying gave him a slew of read errors (pretty much every sector).

He's insisting on replacing the controller board, even though I'm quite certain it's fine, despite the errors.

Edit: Knowing all that, do you reckon a dd would work?

[datora]

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If I were trying such recovery/maintenance, I'd probably mount the HDD directly into a PC, rather than an external enclosure.  By preference, I'd try to use a PC with the identical operating system as was originally used to format the drive.  Given it's a large modern drive, I'd also strongly consider Win7 in 64-bit, although a modern linux system might well have good options.  Most of them have live CDs these days, so you can burn an ISO to CD, boot off it and see if you've got the tools that'll read the drive ... and, again, maybe better luck if the HDD is directly mounted into the PC.

I used to rely heavily on restoration.  It's a bit dated by today's standards, but I've used it on Win 95/98/ME/NT/2K/XP in the past and pulled all sorts of amazing stuff from drives.

Might not hurt to contact Western Digital support.  They've been pretty responsive to me in the past when they find out I am a product owner that has purchased a number of their products over the years.  They might have downloadable recovery tools available.


[ oh EDIT:  Replacing the controller board is a last-ditch, Hail Mary tactic that usually ends up destroying the drive beyond all hope of recovery or future use.  It should be reserved for a last-ditch, Hail Mary attempt after EVERYTHING ELSE has completely failed. ]

[Freedom Kira]

[ oh EDIT:  Replacing the controller board is a last-ditch, Hail Mary tactic that usually ends up destroying the drive beyond all hope of recovery or future use.  It should be reserved for a last-ditch, Hail Mary attempt after EVERYTHING ELSE has completely failed. ]

I tried to tell him that myself, but... >.>

Edit: He said he tried the demo version of R-Studio and got a ton of read errors there as well. I've been recommending him programs that were mentioned in this thread, which I created last year.

[Lupin]

[ oh EDIT:  Replacing the controller board is a last-ditch, Hail Mary tactic that usually ends up destroying the drive beyond all hope of recovery or future use.  It should be reserved for a last-ditch, Hail Mary attempt after EVERYTHING ELSE has completely failed. ]

you should only do this if your replacement board uses the same firmware as the original board. you'll fry the drive if you don't

[Freedom Kira]

He claims to have an identical drive, but I think he needs to take a close look to make sure. He bought two of the same external at the same time, but I don't think that's any kind of guarantee.

Edit: Well, he went and did it. Apparently now the drive is making clunky sounds instead of being completely silent. He said he's gonna try freezing it, and if that doesn't work he'll give up. I doubt 200MB of images is enough to warrant professional data recovery services...

[datora]

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Any chance this is a numbskull Canadian who calls himself "SuperDave?"  I had to deal with that guy in Latvia.  He also wanted to replace the controller on one of my drives, claiming there was no need to match the models just so long as the manufacturer was the same.    I had to physically restrain him from touching and fiddling with my tech gear.  An insufferable braggart who thought he was some genius, but was seriously ignorant about some Really Important Details.

Well, anyways, you can congratulate him on his new doorstop, possibly even two of them now.  Good News: you now know for certain one imbecile not to let near any of your tech.   

[vuzedome]

Sounds like a potential know-it-all DIY gone wrong situation.

[Freedom Kira]

Any chance this is a numbskull Canadian who calls himself "SuperDave?"

Nope. Cool story though, bro. =P

Just so you guys know, I had him check this thread every so often. =P

He's also not really technologically knowledgeable, but not technologically challenged. Probably a bit better than average user? I admit to having opened the external for him with another coworker though, so I guess it's partially my fault that he got that far. I lent him my enclosure to see if the enclosure was screwy, but nope, no avail.

[datora]

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Sorry this is a "day late," but ran across this freeware utility:

 - http://www.pcinspector.de/default.htm?language=1

PC INSPECTOR™ File Recovery

It was linked from HP/Compaq as a recommended (but not officially endorsed) utility, especially for erasing drives.  I've not used it yet, but likely will over upcoming weeks.


Also this:

 - http://eraser.heidi.ie/
 - http://www.heidi.ie/node/6

Eraser 6.0.8


While I'm not generally a fan of HP or (even less) of Compaq, the fact they would link to these from their corporate site gives me enough curiosity and confidence to give 'em a test spin at some point.  So, leaving "bookmarks" here while I continue system rebuild & file recovery operations in my cave.

[sapsa]

The usual data recovery tools should work. Though the EARS drives use 4k sectors internally, the firmware only exposes 512B sectors to the OS, so they effectively are 512B-sector drives as far as the OS is concerned. ‘True’ 4k-sector drives won’t be out in the market so soon, at least not until proper 4k-sector support is widespread in all major OSes.

The only concern is decreased write performance due to unaligned sectors, but this does not affect basic hard drive operation. Your usual data recovery tools should work just as well on EARS as on the older EADS drives.

From what i know this is False. The wrong Align of hdd that use 4k not allways slow down performance. You can look at WD forum/newegg reviews, where alot of people report that they get alot of errors in Smart etc... all because they use those HDD's at XP without knowing nothing about AdvFormat aka 4k sectors.

[ oh EDIT:  Replacing the controller board is a last-ditch, Hail Mary tactic that usually ends up destroying the drive beyond all hope of recovery or future use.  It should be reserved for a last-ditch, Hail Mary attempt after EVERYTHING ELSE has completely failed. ]

I tried to tell him that myself, but... >.>

Edit: He said he tried the demo version of R-Studio and got a ton of read errors there as well. I've been recommending him programs that were mentioned in this thread, which I created last year.

Errors could came from bad align - or the app dont support 4k sectors.

Awesome, thanks.

He's been running some odd HDD tools. The latest one he's trying gave him a slew of read errors (pretty much every sector).

He's insisting on replacing the controller board, even though I'm quite certain it's fine, despite the errors.

Edit: Knowing all that, do you reckon a dd would work?

Probably because of 512 vs 4k sectors. There was a WD recommanded app for those hdd's.



PS. You can look at topic I made some time ago about me breaking Partition Table and fixing it with Acros... something application - not sure now. Mayby thats the problem, corrupted partition table = unallocated space

[Freedom Kira]

It's alright, I think he's given up by now. I'll let you know if he's still struggling. =)