[SOLVED] Any hope for data recovery?

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Jan 6, 2022
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We have a Western Digital 1 TB SATA HDD that was working fine last week and now is not detected when connected to the computer. It was in an external case with a USB connector. We removed it from the case and put it into a docking station. The PC beeps as the station is recognized but the drive is not. It shows up in disk management as unknown, not initialized and unallocated. We chatted with a data recovery software company that said it was likely an issue with MBR and that their software would likely not be able to help us. Traditional data recovery companies want at least $400 to recover the files.

Our options appear to be 1) pay the $400 and hope to get our files back or 2) toss the drive and be done with it.

Looking for other options if there are any. Thank you in advance for any help
 
Solution
The HDD came in the enclosure.
it's very possible that you nor a 3rd party recovery option would be able to retrieve the data.
if this is important data that you really can't bear to lose you may want to contact Western Digital directly and ask what they recommend.

i had a similar situation with Seagate many years ago and their solution was to ship the drive to them, and if the data was still intact, pay them ~$600 for a new external drive with the data included on it.
and the original drive was only ~$250 new.
what does this have to do with graphics cards?
you need to request this thread be moved to the proper sub-forum through the "! Report" feature in the bottom-left of your post.

external enclosed drives may use a special encryption that requires the original housing for data to be decrypted as you access it.
was this an HDD you added to your own enclosure or was it purchased as an external drive?
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
We have a Western Digital 1 TB SATA HDD that was working fine last week and now is not detected when connected to the computer. It was in an external case with a USB connector. We removed it from the case and put it into a docking station. The PC beeps as the station is recognized but the drive is not. It shows up in disk management as unknown, not initialized and unallocated. We chatted with a data recovery software company that said it was likely an issue with MBR and that their software would likely not be able to help us. Traditional data recovery companies want at least $400 to recover the files.

Our options appear to be 1) pay the $400 and hope to get our files back or 2) toss the drive and be done with it.

Looking for other options if there are any. Thank you in advance for any help
  1. What is the level of pain if this data is gone forever?
  2. This is specifically why we preach about backups around here.

Your enclosure and the dock may want to use different formatting or sector sizes.
If different, the new dock can't read it, even if fully functional.
 
Jan 6, 2022
4
0
10
what does this have to do with graphics cards?
you need to request this thread be moved to the proper sub-forum through the "! Report" feature in the bottom-left of your post.

external enclosed drives may use a special encryption that requires the original housing for data to be decrypted as you access it.
was this an HDD you added to your own enclosure or was it purchased as an external drive?
The HDD came in the enclosure. Thanks for your help
 
The HDD came in the enclosure.
it's very possible that you nor a 3rd party recovery option would be able to retrieve the data.
if this is important data that you really can't bear to lose you may want to contact Western Digital directly and ask what they recommend.

i had a similar situation with Seagate many years ago and their solution was to ship the drive to them, and if the data was still intact, pay them ~$600 for a new external drive with the data included on it.
and the original drive was only ~$250 new.
 
Solution
You could try a software program called "SpinRite" sold by Steve Gibson for $89. It might work for you. It's offered with a 30-day, money-back, satisfaction guarantee.

SpinRite is the last program that you would want to run against a failing HDD. It is not by any means a data recovery tool. My advice is to stay as far away from it as you can.

Deconstructing SpinRite:
http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=181&t=2929

I would try to retrieve a SMART report from the drive using a tool such as CrystalDiskInfo. If this fails, then this would imply that the drive cannot retrieve the SMART data from a hidden firmware area on the platters. This would in turn confirm that the drive has an internal fault, in which case no software would be able to access the user's data.
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
We have a Western Digital 1 TB SATA HDD that was working fine last week and now is not detected when connected to the computer. It was in an external case with a USB connector. We removed it from the case and put it into a docking station. The PC beeps as the station is recognized but the drive is not. It shows up in disk management as unknown, not initialized and unallocated. We chatted with a data recovery software company that said it was likely an issue with MBR and that their software would likely not be able to help us. Traditional data recovery companies want at least $400 to recover the files.

Our options appear to be 1) pay the $400 and hope to get our files back or 2) toss the drive and be done with it.

Looking for other options if there are any. Thank you in advance for any help
What is the value of the data on this drive...personal or actual $$?
 
Jan 6, 2022
4
0
10
We have a Western Digital 1 TB SATA HDD that was working fine last week and now is not detected when connected to the computer. It was in an external case with a USB connector. We removed it from the case and put it into a docking station. The PC beeps as the station is recognized but the drive is not. It shows up in disk management as unknown, not initialized and unallocated. We chatted with a data recovery software company that said it was likely an issue with MBR and that their software would likely not be able to help us. Traditional data recovery companies want at least $400 to recover the files.

Our options appear to be 1) pay the $400 and hope to get our files back or 2) toss the drive and be done with it.

Looking for other options if there are any. Thank you in advance for any help

Thank you all for your input and sorry I put this into the wrong forum. FWIW I fixed the problem - the HDD had encryption software running on the small PC board attached to the drive. The mini-USB connector snapped off and we thought we could use a docking station without the board - WRONG. Got on ebay, bought a replacement board, installed it and the HDD works like new. Thanks again
 

Zerk2012

Titan
Ambassador
Thank you all for your input and sorry I put this into the wrong forum. FWIW I fixed the problem - the HDD had encryption software running on the small PC board attached to the drive. The mini-USB connector snapped off and we thought we could use a docking station without the board - WRONG. Got on ebay, bought a replacement board, installed it and the HDD works like new. Thanks again
Then now would be a very good time to make backup to all the data or sooner or latter your going to have this go on again and next time it might just be gone.
 
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