[SOLVED] Data Recovery from WD Elements Portable with USB Descriptor Corrupted

[DanieleGamba]

Hi! I just bought a new WD Elements Portable, that I filled with data.

Unfortunately, today I connected it to the pc via an old USB hub of mine, which has corrupted the hard drive making it invisible to the pc (I think so, because it already happened with an USB stick).

In Windows, under Device Manager, it appears with a yellow label as “Unknown Device”, and every attempt to update its driver failed.

In Linux I got a more precise description. The drive appears as

Bus 002 Device 004: ID 1058:01a1 Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
Couldn't open device, some information will be missing Device Descriptor:
bLength 18
bDescriptorType 1
bcdUSB 3.10
bDeviceClass 0 (Defined at Interface level)
bDeviceSubClass 0
bDeviceProtocol 0
bMaxPacketSize0 1
idVendor 0x1058 Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
idProduct 0x01a1
bcdDevice 10.18
iManufacturer 2
iProduct 3
iSerial 1
bNumConfigurations 1
Configuration Descriptor:
bLength 9
bDescriptorType 2
wTotalLength 44
bNumInterfaces 1
bConfigurationValue 1
iConfiguration 0
bmAttributes 0x00 (Missing must-be-set bit!) (Bus Powered)
MaxPower 224mA
Interface Descriptor:
bLength 9
bDescriptorType 4
bInterfaceNumber 0
bAlternateSetting 0
bNumEndpoints 0
bInterfaceClass 8 Mass Storage
bInterfaceSubClass 2 SFF-8020i, MMC-2 (ATAPI)
bInterfaceProtocol 80 iInterface 0

Further, as soon as I connect the drive to the pc, the system logs say:


[ 625.692407] usb usb2-port2: cannot disable (err = -32)
[ 625.692422] usb 2-2: USB disconnect, device number 4
[ 628.060476] usb 2-2: new SuperSpeed USB device number 5 using xhci_hcd
[ 628.081133] usb 2-2: config 1 contains an unexpected descriptor of type 0x1, skipping
[ 628.081138] usb 2-2: config 1 has an invalid descriptor of length 15, skipping remainder of the config
[ 628.081144] usb 2-2: config 1 interface 0 altsetting 0 has an invalid endpoint descriptor of length 3, skipping
[ 628.081149] usb 2-2: config 1 interface 0 altsetting 0 has 1 endpoint descriptor, different from the interface descriptor's value: 2
[ 628.081537] usb 2-2: New USB device found, idVendor=1058, idProduct=01a1
[ 628.081542] usb 2-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=2, Product=3, SerialNumber=1
[ 628.081546] usb 2-2: Product: Elements 25A1
[ 628.081550] usb 2-2: Manufacturer: Western Digital
[ 628.081553] usb 2-2: SerialNumber: 575836314133374558385046
[ 628.082228] usb-storage 2-2:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected


I’m desperate for recovering the files that I put on this drive.
In your opinion, will it be necessary to open it as indicated in this article, or that can be avoided?

 

[fzabkar]

Is it a powered hub? Can you hear the drive spin up and remain spinning?

What does CrystalDiskInfo report?

https://crystalmark.info/en/download/

 

[DanieleGamba]

Is it a powered hub? Can you hear the drive spin up and remain spinning?

What does CrystalDiskInfo report?

https://crystalmark.info/en/download/

Yes, when I plug it starts spinning and the light turns on.

The utility CrystalDiskInfo does not see it, because windows does not recognize it as a valid usb device.

 

[fzabkar]

It appears that the HDD has an internal fault, possibly weak heads or bad media.