Fix MBR on WD MyBook Essentials 3TB USB 3.0?

[gerskan]

3TB WD MyBook Essentials quit working. Drive spins up, light flashes 1-3 times /sec. Win7 Pro disk management sometimes sees it as MyBook and nothing else. Not shown in Explorer. Downloaded latest WD utility and this shows it as MyBook 0MB. Only option available in utility is low level format.

Contacted WD help and was told to send to data recovery because MBR was corrupted. Is there a free or inexpensive repair tool to repair MBR?

Tried using "Active @ Partition" and got " MBR is damaged " message.

Is there a "standard" WD MBR for this drive that I can restore?

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey there, gerskan.

Sorry to hear about the issues you're having with your drive. There are some 3rd party tools which are meant to rebuild MBR, however I'd recommend that you first try to recover your data.
Go ahead and try the drive with a different computer and a different USB cable to see if the same thing happens
You should try accessing the drive via Ubuntu Live USB/DVD, to see it it recognizes the partition properly and lets you recover your data. Another option would be to try out data recovery software: http://pcsupport.about.com/od/filerecovery/tp/free-file-recovery-programs.htm.

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

 

[gerskan]

Thanks Boogieman_WD, will continue my education and see how it goes. Will inform. Have tried 2 cables and 2 computers with same results.



I booted into Unbuntu and was still unable to see the failed 3TB WD MyEsentials drive listed. The USB Unbuntu boot drive and main SSD were recognized and read correctly.
I assume the data recovery requires recognition of the drive so data can be recovered, at least so far I have found no way to apply data recovery software to this problem.

Back to Win7 Pro and the drive is present in Device Manager, which states it is working properly. General Tab: Device is working properly. Volumes Tab: Disk -Disk 1; Type - Unknown; Status -Not Initialized; Capacity - 0MB; Unallocated Space -0MB; Reserved Space - 0MB.

Do I understand correctly, this external drive is run under some type of linux OS and hardware system contained in the enclosure and cannot just be removed from case and placed in a desktop to attempt to read it??

Is it possible to put the disk in another WD external drive case to see if the problem is the actual drive or a failure of hardware/OS in the enclosure?

Since the drive shows up and is recognized as "WD MyBook 1140 USB Device" in Device Manager and also recognized as "MyBook" by WD utilities, shouldn't Unbuntu also recognize it is present?

I have almost zero Unbuntu experience. Is there another tool or way to actually recognize and read the current state of the drive? Thank you for your patience and advice.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hi again gerskan.

Sorry for the late reply.
Unfortunately taking the drive out of its enclosure is never OK. My Book has hardware encryption (unless you've ordered a model without it) and you won't be able to get the data out of it without its original enclosure, even if it's a different WD enclosure. If Win 7 recognizes the drive as not initialized and unallocated drive. It really seems like there's something very wrong. Unfortunately there's no way to tell if it's the drive itself or the enclosure without taking the drive out and that's not recommended as I've already mentioned. Taking it out would also void its warranty.

I assume that the reason for the HDD not to be recognized by Ubuntu is because of the issues it has. In such cases it's possible to be recognized by one OS and not by another. That's why I recommended Ubuntu, hoping that it would be accessible, but alas, it seems like it didn't do any good.

Try out the data recovery software options from my previous post. If they can't help perhaps trying out a professional solution, such as a data recovery company might be a better idea: WD Data Recovery Partners as previously suggested by our customer support team.

 

[gerskan]

Thank again for the input and information. The reason I asked about switching WD Essentials enclosures is information posted elsewhere stated that as long as no password has been set for the encryption, data can be read by another WD Essentials enclosure that is also without a set password, as both drives are using the default data-writing/encryption method. This seems logical to me. But logic doesn't always extrapolate into real world experience.

The drive is off warranty, though it was basically only run very few hours while backing up the data onto it. When not in use it was shut off/ unplugged to increase life expectancy. 🙁 One week after the failure, my new 2nd backup drive arrived. Just a wee bit late.

Do you have any idea what it would cost to recover 1TB of data in this situation? Even a guesstimate range would be helpful.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

I'm really sorry it had to come to this. Unfortunately, chances that you'd be able to swap enclosure and read the data are not on your side. The chips should create different encryption for each drive, regardless if there's a password set or not.

As for the data recovery, I honestly can't predict even a little bit. You'd have to get in touch with data recovery company and explain your situation in order to get an approximate estimation.

Sorry I couldn't be of any help regarding this situation 🙁