WD My book data recovery - issue with encryption

[Sriram Mahalingam]

Hi,

I live in Chennai, India. My Wd my book 1Tb was not recognised one day. I have some invaluable data in it. I opened the case and connected it directly to my computer. It was recognised but windows showed it as unallocated space. I assigned a drive letter but the drive did not open.

WD does not have any recovery centre in my location. I took the HDD to stellar data recovery, a multinational data recovery company for recovery. They diagnosed and said the head has crashed and requested my permission to open the HDD. They assured that their labs are class 100 certified and my platter will be safe.

A week later they said they have imaged the HDD successfully by changing the head, but the data is encrypted. They asked me for the USB sata bridge that came with My Book. I provided them the bridge, but they said they could not read the image using it. They tried one more week to procure new bridge from WD but said that WD did not share their proprietory tool. He suggested me to approach WD, but there is none in my location.

Now they are returning me the HDD with the old head, the bridge and the image written in a new HDD. They are assuring that the platter is returned in the given condition and are giving a certificate to attest their recovery procedure.

Now i dont know where to go next. To WD or any other centre. I dont know how much to trust what stellar has said. I referred couple of threads here where they have discussed about this WD encryption procedure. Members like fzabkar are having great knowledge in this regard. The data is so precious to me. I want to be very careful in taking my next step. HELP..

Sriram

 

[hang-the-9]

If it's encrypted, there is nothing you can do unless it can get decrypted. Did you encrypt the data?
If you did, you'd have to use a backup encryption key to unlock it, and you will probably need to contact WD to get this done if a data restore company could not get you any further.

 

[Sriram Mahalingam]

I have not encrypted the data myself.

 

[hang-the-9]

Did the WD drive come with encryption on it? If you did not encrypt it and the drive did not have encryption enabled, the data would not be encrypted.

It may be scrambled and unreadable but not encrypted.

 

[banditdl]

I had a similar problem but with a 4TB external essential. Western Digital encrypts all data on the newer drives by way of the board. The only way to decrypt it is to replace the PCB board with the same model and revision.

I took the board off, found the model and revision printed on the board then did an eBay search. After connecting the new board I just had to reactivate the partition and there was my data.

It just happened to me again by the way. All Ii did was disconnect from my computer and it would not come back on same as the first time. It seems like the USB connector on the boards are notorious for failing. I really believe that's the main issue with these drives.


I used a recovery program (test disk) to view the partitions and reactivate when I had the new board in place.. You can also use it to extract data if not encrypted. There's two programs for different uses both are made by the same company.

TestDisk - lost partition or strange problem with your hard disk partitions, run TestDisk to recover your data.
Photorec - To recover your lost digital pictures or lost files.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/




PCB Board auctions:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/200941649002

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Control-Board-Western-Digital-My-Book-replaces-4060-705059-001-4061-705059-001-/201011665666?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2ecd3a9b02

Hi,

I live in Chennai, India. My Wd my book 1Tb was not recognised one day. I have some invaluable data in it. I opened the case and connected it directly to my computer. It was recognised but windows showed it as unallocated space. I assigned a drive letter but the drive did not open.

WD does not have any recovery centre in my location. I took the HDD to stellar data recovery, a multinational data recovery company for recovery. They diagnosed and said the head has crashed and requested my permission to open the HDD. They assured that their labs are class 100 certified and my platter will be safe.

A week later they said they have imaged the HDD successfully by changing the head, but the data is encrypted. They asked me for the USB sata bridge that came with My Book. I provided them the bridge, but they said they could not read the image using it. They tried one more week to procure new bridge from WD but said that WD did not share their proprietory tool. He suggested me to approach WD, but there is none in my location.

Now they are returning me the HDD with the old head, the bridge and the image written in a new HDD. They are assuring that the platter is returned in the given condition and are giving a certificate to attest their recovery procedure.

Now i dont know where to go next. To WD or any other centre. I dont know how much to trust what stellar has said. I referred couple of threads here where they have discussed about this WD encryption procedure. Members like fzabkar are having great knowledge in this regard. The data is so precious to me. I want to be very careful in taking my next step. HELP..

Sriram

 

[diskerab]

...I took the board off, found the model and revision printed on the board then did an eBay search. After connecting the new board I just had to reactivate the partition and there was my data.

Hi - if anybody is still reading this...I have a WD Book with knackered encryption bridge (circuit). If I replace with same model/revision I can in theory see the data BUT what does " I just had to reactivate the partition" mean? Cheers.

 

[hang-the-9]

...I took the board off, found the model and revision printed on the board then did an eBay search. After connecting the new board I just had to reactivate the partition and there was my data.

Hi - if anybody is still reading this...I have a WD Book with knackered encryption bridge (circuit). If I replace with same model/revision I can in theory see the data BUT what does " I just had to reactivate the partition" mean? Cheers.

The program TestDisk will do that for you if it can. Not all drives can be saved with it.