3 TB WD shows LBA 1, 512 bytes size

[jaco4377]

Suddenly a 3TB WD external disk stopped showing in windows. I removed the disk from its case and plugged directly on motherboard’s SATA. After a long time waiting the disk was recognized by device manger but as a non formatted one. The disk is a Green WD 3TB. On my first attempt to recover files with Get Data Back Simple the disk was recognized as NTFS 2,8something TB with almost all of the files ready for recovery. I’ve decided to proceed in a “sophistication” scan of the disk, as it's called in the program. Because of it’s long time scanning, I left it overnight. Next day the program wasn’t responding. On reboot the disk is recognized in the device manager with the correct name (WDV WD30EZRX-00D8PB0 ATA Device), but has only LBA 1, with 512 bytes size. How can I see the full capacity again for recovery?

Windows 7 x64

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey there, jaco4377.

I'm sorry to hear about the problems you're having with your drive. Basically taking a drive out of its enclosure is never recommended, because this voids the warranty. Other than that if it is a model with hardware encryption, you won't be able to recover your data without its original enclosure. I'd recommend that you try the drive with the enclosure and a different USB cables, to see if the same thing happens. You could also try accessing it via Ubuntu Live USB/DVD, to see if it's properly recognized and if you can get to your files. If that doesn't work as well, you could try with a data recovery company: WD Data Recovery Partners

Hope that helps. Please let me know how everything goes.
Boogieman_WD