Recovery Force® Data Recovery Forum

Hello everyone,

I have a 3TB Western Digital MyBook drive that suddenly stopped being recognized.

This has the awful WD USB PCB that's required in order to see the filesystem because of the block size translation. It has the ASM1051W chip, which, I understand, actually does NOT encrypt the drive.

However, setting that aside for a moment...

Even when the USB PCB is removed, and drive is just plugged in to SATA power and data, it only gets recognized in the BIOS briefly upon a cold boot of the system. By the time any operating system tries to address it, it's gone. If I warm boot, the BIOS doesn't see it. This happens with both motherboard SATA and PCI card SATA adapters.

Whether the WD PCB is present or not, the drive spins up, and just gives repeated three "gentle" clicks.

I've even tried a donor USB PCB from another MyBook. There was no change in behavior.

When connected via USB, repair utilities like testdisk or ddrescue just error out, rapidly, on every sector. It's as if the disk itself isn't even attached. When connected via SATA, it doesn't stay present long enough to be addressed by any OS.

I'm most intrigued by how the drive just stops existing until a cold boot, is detectable again for some number of seconds, and how that's repeatable.

What's next? Would there be any hope in a hard drive PCB replacement and ROM swap? Or is it clear that the drive is damaged physically? If the latter, are there any reputable data recovery services that don't cost several thousands of dollars?

It might be the PCB, but is more than likely a firmware issue, possibly accompanied with bad sectors and weak heads.

If the data is of value, now is the time to seek a pro...before it gets worse.

lcoughey wrote: ↑Fri May 14, 2021 2:25 am It might be the PCB, but is more than likely a firmware issue, possibly accompanied with bad sectors and weak heads.

If the data is of value, now is the time to seek a pro...before it gets worse.

+1

As for reputable labs that don't overcharge, Recovery Force is one. Where are you located, that might help narrow in on a place close by.

Thank you again, everyone.

I am in Southeastern Pennsylvania, United States. Any referrals - even to your own interests - are welcome, provided that doesn't violate forum rules.

Also, I have some more information:

(1) I obtained an identical unit, WD MyBook 3.0 TB, with the same ASMEDIA ASM1051W chip. I was able to take its SATA drive, connect directly to a PC, and access the data after changing testdisk's block size to 4096 bytes from 512. This suggests to me that the AS1051W chip does not encrypt, but the USB bridge simply translates the block size. So I feel like if I could get the SATA drive to work in a system, I could access its data.

(2) If I plug in ONLY the SATA PCB, detached from the drive itself, from either the failed or the working WD drive, I see that same behavior: initially recognized as a 0 MB WD disk, then not present on subsequent warm boots. This suggests to be that the PCB is more likely, but not certain, to be OK. This is disappointing, as a new PCB and ROM swap is relatively expensive and less invasive.

I am rapidly approaching the conclusion that the problem is inside the disk. I'm so used to being able to slowly use ddrescue or similar to methodically extract, and am frustrated that this disk appears "too dead."

Anyone's thoughts are welcome.

The reason that the drive with the PCB and the PCB without the drive get the same results is that in both cases, it is being read in a kernel mode because the firmware stored on the platters cannot be loaded.

If the root cause is just the firmware, then hddsuperclone might have the ability to fix the firmware. But, if the underlying cause is the heads and/or media damage, that attempt might just be enough to make the recovery by a professional a lot more complicated and expensive.

It really comes down to it. Anything that "might" be recoverable by you should land at the sub $500 USD recovery rates at reputable labs. Some things that aren't aren't recoverable by you may also land within that category. So, if your data isn't worth the lower data recovery rates, it is worth messing around with. But, if it is worth the lower rates and possibly more, it probably isn't a good idea to try things first, possibly making things worse or completely unrecoverable.

We are north of the border and our $450 CAD minor rate turns into about $375 USD (as of right now). If you want to stick to the US, there is Desert Data Recovery who also commented on this post.