Question WD Laptop Hard Drive dropped. Desperate need of help

[Leospixel]

Hi.
I'm in desperate need of some help. I dropped my laptop while it was on and after some minutes the laptop restarted it self and showed "hard drive not installed". I knew right away that my hard drive was far gone but still wanted to try to get my data back. I plugged it to a sata usb adapter on a different computer. The driver was showing on my pc and even on disk management but it was not initialized so I had no choice but to format it. I used easeus to try to recover my data. The scan was going on for 2 days straight and was still at 0%. I could see the software was finding files from the hard drive but I felt like it was impossible to recover my data and I was damaging my hard drive even more so I stopped the scanning process. I made the mistake of making a disk image after I formatted it. My question is. Can I recover my data using the disk image?. I tried Stellar to recover data from the disk image I made but found zero files. Is there any chance I could still get my data back? Thanks in advance.

My hard drive is:
Western Digital WD10SPZX Hard Drive 1 TB 2.5 Inch SATA III

 

[fzabkar]

Your drive probably supports TRIM (SCSI UNMAP), in which case formatting it would have destroyed any chance of DIY data recovery.

https://hddscan.com/blog/2020/hdd-wd-smr.html

That said, I can't understand how your tools managed to find any files if the process was stuck at 0%. The symptoms you have described are consistent with a drive that has sustained a head or media fault. What you were seeing in Disk Management would have been the USB-SATA bridge rather than the HDD behind the bridge.

You can use HxD (freeware hex editor) to view your disk image file. Drag the vertical scrollbar from top to bottom. Do you see anything other than zeros?

https://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd/

Edit:

Did you drive spin up after the event? If not, then it may have a stiction fault (heads stuck to platters).

 

[Leospixel]

Your drive probably supports TRIM (SCSI UNMAP), in which case formatting it would have destroyed any chance of DIY data recovery.

https://hddscan.com/blog/2020/hdd-wd-smr.html

That said, I can't understand how your tools managed to find any files if the process was stuck at 0%. The symptoms you have described are consistent with a drive that has sustained a head or media fault. What you were seeing in Disk Management would have been the USB-SATA bridge rather than the HDD behind the bridge.

You can use HxD (freeware hex editor) to view your disk image file. Drag the vertical scrollbar from top to bottom. Do you see anything other than zeros?

https://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd/

Edit:

Did you drive spin up after the event? If not, then it may have a stiction fault (heads stuck to platters).

Thanks for your reply.

Yes my drive still spins.
I used HxD and towards the end this is what I see:
https://freeimage.host/i/HToELmJ

 

[fzabkar]

That looks like a footer that is appended by Stellar. It's not part of your data.

 

[Leospixel]

So in other words my data is all gone?

 

[USAFRet]

So in other words my data is all gone?

Unless you can recover it from the backup you made before this happened, yes.

 

[Leospixel]

Unless you can recover it from the backup you made before this happened, yes.

No backup :/

 

[fzabkar]

If the drive was not actually overwritten, then the data must still be there. Unfortunately it's hard to understand what really happened because your statements appear to be inconsistent.

Was the drive actually spinning? Was it making any bad noises?

These guys claim to be able to recover TRIM-ed data from your model:

https://thedigilab.com/about-us.html

 

[USAFRet]

Laptop dropped
(was probably recoverable)

Put in an External enclosure
Initialized
Formatted

Now, nothing.

How much $$ is this data worth to you?
Anything life changing?

 

[Leospixel]

If the drive was not actually overwritten, then the data must still be there. Unfortunately it's hard to understand what really happened because your statements appear to be inconsistent.

Was the drive actually spinning? Was it making any bad noises?

These guys claim to be able to recover TRIM-ed data from your model:

https://thedigilab.com/about-us.html

I could hear the drive spinning. No bad noises.

I contacted several data recovery and they told I have 50/50 chance of getting my data back. They said it was a mistake that I formatted the drive and it will cost me around $1000. Too much money and still no qurannte what type of files I will be able to get back. That's why I wonder if there's anything I can do myself to be able to get some of my data back.

 

[Leospixel]

Laptop dropped
(was probably recoverable)

Putin an External enclosure
Initialized
Formatted

Now, nothing.

How much $$ is this data worth to you?
Anything life changing?

Not really. But there's some photos and videos I would love to recover.

 

[fzabkar]

I only know of that one DR shop that can recover TRIM-ed data from your model, assuming your format operation was successful. I think you would be wasting your time with the others.

 

[USAFRet]

Not really. But there's some photos and videos I would love to recover.

Well, you now the cost of how much it will be to 'maybe' get 'some' of it.

 

[Leospixel]

I only know of that one DR shop that can recover TRIM-ed data from your model, assuming your format operation was successful. I think you would be wasting your time with the others.

Thanks for the recommendation. I'll check them out.

 

[fzabkar]

Thanks for the recommendation. I'll check them out.

Just to put you in the picture, most DR shops use PC3000 and/or MRT Lab. These two tools are the top tools in the data recovery business. Unfortunately neither tool has a solution for your particular case, which means that 99% of players will not be able to help you. The Digilab guys produce their own solutions, so they are not dependent on turnkey software.

BTW, if you decide to spin up your drive again (this would be inadvisable), quickly obtain a SMART report with CrystalDiskInfo or GSmartControl. If neither tool retrieves the SMART attributes, this will be because the drive has a head or media fault. The SMART data lives in a reserved area of the platters (System Area, SA). A bad head will prevent the firmware from reaching the SA.

 

[Leospixel]

Just to put you in the picture, most DR shops use PC3000 and/or MRT Lab. These two tools are the top tools in the data recovery business. Unfortunately neither tool has a solution for your particular case, which means that 99% of players will not be able to help you. The Digilab guys produce their own solutions, so they are not dependent on turnkey software.

Whoa I didn't know that. Very interesting. Thanks again I will contact them.

 

[fzabkar]

It just occurred to me that if you have cloned your drive after successfully formatting it, then the very first sector of your image file should have a partition table. If it is full of zeros, then there is some other issue.

 

[fzabkar]

Sorry, I was mistaken. The latest update to PC3000 (December 08, 2022 ) has added support for your case.

The new PC-3000 Software Ver. 7.2.12, Data Extractor / Data Extractor RAID Edition Ver. 6.2.11, PC-3000 SSD Ver. 3.2.9 has been released:
https://www.acelab.eu.com/news/the-new-pc-3000-software-ver-7212

WD Marvell HDD

ADDED the ability to create a translator (module 190) for reading bands when the translator is "lost" (when it is cleared, TRIMmed or when it is a "zeroed" HDD)

 

[Leospixel]

Sorry, I was mistaken. The latest update to PC3000 (December 08, 2022 ) has added support for your case.

The new PC-3000 Software Ver. 7.2.12, Data Extractor / Data Extractor RAID Edition Ver. 6.2.11, PC-3000 SSD Ver. 3.2.9 has been released:
https://www.acelab.eu.com/news/the-new-pc-3000-software-ver-7212

That's great news. I wish the cost wasn't so expensive. If money wasn't the problem I would have already gotten my data back.

Anyways. So I decided to spin up the drive again. This time Windows Explorer freezes. If I right click on the drive then Windows Explorer crashes and as soon as I unplug it everything works fine.

Why this is happening?

 

[fzabkar]

It sounds like your drive is bogging down in its internal error recovery routines. This causes it to remain busy for an extended time.

 

[Leospixel]

It sounds like your drive is bogging down in its internal error recovery routines. This causes it to remain busy for an extended time.

Anyway this can get fixed? Because now it's impossible to be able to do anything on the drive . It freeze even the disk management.

 

[ex_bubblehead]

Anyway this can get fixed? Because now it's impossible to be able to do anything on the drive . It freeze even the disk management.

How many different ways does it have to be said. Your data is gone. Even the pros give less than 50-50 odds on anything at all being recoverable even if you spend >$1000. This isn't fixable.