Original drive failed, backup drive was brand new and suddenly appears empty

[Kurtko Ryuu]

Hey guys,

First time posting, I am in a bit of a pickle here, the situation is kinda complicated but I'll try to keep it as short as possible.

I had an original 2TB WD external HDD and it came up with the "need to format drive" error. I searched the internet and found the "chkdsk" solution that works. So I got a brand new Seagate 2TB external HDD to back my data up on it, and after a few days I finally transferred all data (yes it really took a few days).

I encrypted the whole Seagate drive with BitLocker before I put any data on it (in case it is important).

Unfortunately for me, I got really busy with work and I never got around formatting the old WD drive and backing the data up.
Last Monday I tried to play some music from my Seagate drive and suddenly I notice there is no encryption on the drive, I open it up and it appears empty. First I was completely confused, I checked forums and I didn't find anything really similar. I tried using Recuva to try and see if I somehow deleted the whole drive accidentaly... Nothing... I even did a deep scan, didn't find a single thing on the drive, it appears as the drive is brand new. It did find 5 randomly named video files which were in excelent condition but when I recovered them (to a separate drive of course), and tried to play them, I couldn't play them with any player I could think of (unsupported format).
I tried recovering the encryption key, I thought that it somehow got lost and the whole partition was completely hidden from the system because of the encryption (is that a thing? Is that what happens to a lost encrypted partition?). When I tried recovering the enryption, it said if couldn't find anything on the drive.

Then I thought, ok, I'll just format it and get the old drive working again and take a few days to copy everything over again. So I format the drive, and I redid a deep scan with Recuva to see if that changes anything now that it is formated, nothing, same 5 files.
Then I tried to do the chkdsk trick on the old hdd again, but this time it says chkdsk is not available for RAW format. I tried scanning the drive with Recuva, unfortunately doesn't support the format. I read some threads about using linux live to mount the drive and be able to recover the files that way, but I couldn't try it as my computer simply didn't want to let me boot from the USB (yes I made it bootable etc...) But I have never played with linux in that way before either so I am really careful with that option, if I format the drive in linux somehow and windows can't read it the files will be gone for good (does anyone have a step by step tutorial on how to use the linux live to do that, I found a thread on HowToGeek, but that is about it)?

At this very moment I am completely out of ideas, and I really need those files back, it literally has all my pictures, music and other important stuff on it.

The only thing I was thinking of doing to get the most of the files back but most likely not all (which is acceptable if I have no other option) is to actually format the WD drive and get it into an accessible state again and then use Recuva on it, do a deep scan and just salvage all the files I can, is that a viable option at all or would the fact that it is in a RAW format now somehow completely prevent me from recovering the files after the format.

I also tried scanning the RAW format drive with MiniTool Power Data Recovery, it did find some files and it was scanning, but it would literally have taken 3000h to finish according to the estimated time. That process got canceled over night as windows decided it is time to install some updates and restart (yes I am on windows 10).

I am an IT person and I have an understanding of what is happening and why, but my knowledge is not that deep in regards to HDDs and formats that I can find a proper working solution for it. The only thing that really is beyond my understanding is the Seagate drive, it is wiped clean, nothing can be found on the drive, is that some "feature" by BitLocker that it does some sort of secure wipe on the drive if it thinks that the drive is compromised? But even if it is the case, wouldn't the files appear on the deep scan, but they would just be completely unrecoverable? I gave up on the Seagate drive, I will focus on my old WD drive to try and get the data back, please give me any suggestions you can think of, I will literally try anything as long as it isn't the "it might work, but if not the files are gone forever" sort of thing.

P.S. I learned from my past mistakes, I bought a 4TB MyBook Duo, going to put it into RAID1 and back up all my data on it when I finally recover it (all fingers crossed). I will obviously not use the drives that were compromised once for backing up data anymore.

I tried: chkdsk, Recuva (incl. deep scan), plugging into another computer, recovering the encryption key, MiniTool Power Data Recovery.
Found possible solutions: linux live (need step by step tutorial)

Please help, I will keep on top of my email so that as soon as someone replies I can try the suggestion and I will come back with the outcome.
Thank you all in advance.

 

[hang-the-9]

If your drive was encrypted, and then lost the encryption due to some drive issue, no file recovery program will get you any of those files back. Formatting it and then trying to get the files through a deleted file scan will just make the drive files more scrambled after the format.

Encryption does not like any errors on the drive to work well, and unfortunately you picked the one brand and size that has known quality issues as a replacement for the WD drive the originally failed.

If you are trying to get the files off the WD drive now (if you did not format it already), you can try to use the SystemRescueCD to try to get the files back, and also ddrescue. Basically you will be trying to clone the possibly failed WD to a good drive, then running the file recovery software on that second good drive.

RAID 1 is also not a backup method, if that external bay fails, or if you delete or format that volume or some files from it, you lose those files. You need a second separate drive for backups. RAID 1 will help when there is a drive failure and you need to get those files back quickly, it's not there to keep your data safe like a backup.

 

[Kurtko Ryuu]

If your drive was encrypted, and then lost the encryption due to some drive issue, no file recovery program will get you any of those files back. Formatting it and then trying to get the files through a deleted file scan will just make the drive files more scrambled after the format.

Encryption does not like any errors on the drive to work well, and unfortunately you picked the one brand and size that has known quality issues as a replacement for the WD drive the originally failed.

If you are trying to get the files off the WD drive now (if you did not format it already), you can try to use the SystemRescueCD to try to get the files back, and also ddrescue. Basically you will be trying to clone the possibly failed WD to a good drive, then running the file recovery software on that second good drive.

RAID 1 is also not a backup method, if that external bay fails, or if you delete or format that volume or some files from it, you lose those files. You need a second separate drive for backups. RAID 1 will help when there is a drive failure and you need to get those files back quickly, it's not there to keep your data safe like a backup.

Hi, thank you for your reply.
I have read more and more as I saw nobody replying for a while and realised that I did make a mistake by formatting the Seagate drive. I was unfortunately not aware of the issue with those drives, but in any case I gave up on recovering data from that drive.

I did not format the original WD drive and I am indeed recovering data from it as we speak. To be more precise, I am still scanning it, the drive is damaged and old so it literally took 5 days for 3% of the scan to complete. The software I am using is EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard. I have tried various tools but none of them seemed to work. I have not tried SystemRescueCD in particular, but I did try booting Ubuntu from a USB but as I mentioned in my original post, I have never used Linux for those purposes and I wasn't able to mount the drive in Linux as some websites suggested. Is there any specific difference between booting Ubuntu from a USB or trying SystemRescueCD?

As already mentioned I am currently continuously scanning the drive with EaseUS and in the preview it seems like it already found the complete directory structure but is now recovering the files themselves (I am actually not certain if the files have been found completely as they do show taking up the right size on the drive or if it found the files but is still "gathering" their complete contents). I am also running only a trial version of the software, but if it successfully completes the scan and finds all my files I will just bite the bullet and pay for the licence as it would be much more expensive to take it to a professional company.

I bought the Duo as a first aid sort of thing. I also looked up cloud services, and I found that amazon cloud storage has the most affordable offer, would you have any other service to suggest instead that would provide unlimited storage and doesn't cost a fortune? I am a bit reluctant to use cloud services, so I can't decide if I should use cloud services or just buy a NAS and use it as a personal cloud and backup, any suggestions?

Thank you again for your reply.

 

[hang-the-9]

The rescue disks are easier to use than just a Linux boot, they are more customized to work with drives. But you still need to read up on how they work, not quite as easy as Easus. It can take a long time, I've seen the Linux recovery take about 2 weeks to scan a drive and copy it over. The big name cloud storage is safe to use, not much chance of them going out of business. NAS is also fine if you'd rather keep your files close. I end up with a mix of them, several local drives for backups and Google Drive for pictures as a secondary.