Western Digital HD

[nshippy]

Good morning.

I am not sure weather there is a simple solution to this, but i'm hoping....

I have a 1Tb wetern digital network external HD WD10000G032. It lost all of the shared/subfolders in it and I can no longer see it in my network. I was able to log into it from I.E. at 192.168.1.103. When doing this I could see the details of the volume and it still showed it at 82% full. From here it would let me create any new shared folders but they would not show up anywhere.
Cutting to the chase, I removed the HD and put it into my computer. The computer installed the drivers to use it, but as I expected, it did not show up as a usable drive in disk management. In order to give it a drive name (big mistake) I converted it into a dynamic disk, at the advice of a friend. Now, it, and all the partitions, have drive letters and the computer wants to format them. The format for the entire volume is RAW and not FAT32 or NTFS.(I did not do a format) I put the HD back into its case. Upon power up I can hear it spin but get no lights or other signs of life. I cannot find it or log into it. Any suggestions on how to proceed without loss of data?

 

[WyomingKnott]

Well, don't do anything more to the drive. Initializing it made the data unaccessible, formatting it will wipe the data. Download some kind of recovery tool and scan the drive. See this: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/267620-32-best-data-recovery-tools
Good luck

 

[nshippy]

Thanks for the help

 

[fzabkar]

I think you will find that the drive has been set up with Linux partitions and file systems (ext2 or ext3). The embedded server will most probably be based on Linux code. Part or all of this code will reside in flash memory of the mainboard inside the enclosure. The main controller IC will bootstrap itself from flash memory, and this boot code may then retrieve more code from a dedicated partition on the HDD.

By writing to the drive in a Windows environment, you would have undoubtedly overwritten part or all of sector 0. At the very least you will have created a new partition type, 0x42. IMHO I would refrain from using any data recovery tools until you have examined the damage. To this end I would use a disc editor in readonly mode to dump sector 0. If you would like to try that, then I would be prepared to help you, if I can.

Otherwise here are several possible data recovery options, both freeware and commercial:

Ubuntu Rescue Remix:
http://ubuntu-rescue-remix.org/

Install Ubuntu Rescue Remix to a Flash Drive:
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/install-ubuntu-rescue-remix-to-a-flash-drive/

UFS Explorer:
http://www.ufsexplorer.com/

Here are several freeware disc editors:

HxD - Freeware Hex Editor and Disk Editor:
http://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd

DMDE (DM Disk Editor and Data Recovery):
http://softdm.com/download.html

Roadkil's Sector Editor:
http://www.roadkil.net/program.php/P24/Sector%20Editor

One other avenue may be WD's forums. Alternatively, if the product does indeed incorporate Linux code, then under the terms of the GNU licence agreement, WD will have been required to make the code publicly available via download.

 

[nshippy]

Thanks, FZ! We started looking into it last nite, it was set up ext2. I am going to work on it some tonite. I will up date this then.

 

[nshippy]

i was able to recover about 50% of the data. Thanks for the help guys!

 

[nshippy]

Best answer selected by nshippy.

 

[WyomingKnott]

fzabkar

That goes into my bookmarks list for threads I post links to. What about drives that commuted between Apple and Windows?

 

[fzabkar]

@nshippy, if you would like to try for the remaining 50%, here is another tool that is the favourite amongst data recovery professionals:

R-Studio Data Recovery for Windows:
http://www.data-recovery-software.net/

It appears to be able to recover Linux partitions from a Windows box.

TestDisk is another freeware tool:
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

@WyomingKnott, if you are asking about accessing Mac HFS/HFS+ file systems on a Windows box, or NTFS file systems on a Mac (in read/write mode), then there are several options.

HFSExplorer (freeware) provides read access to Mac HFS/HFS+/HFSX file systems on a Windows box:
http://www.catacombae.org/hfsx.html

MacDrive (commercial) provides full read/write access to Mac HFS/HFS+/HFSX file systems on a Windows box:
http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/standard

As for mounting an NTFS volume on a Mac, Macs can natively mount NTFS volumes in readonly mode. If you need read/write access, then there is a freeware tool, NTFS-3G:
http://www.tuxera.com/community/ntfs-3g-download/

Here is another freeware tool:
http://www.ntfsmounter.com/

Here is a commercial product (Paragon NTFS for Mac OS X 8.0):
http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/

The following thread discusses how to enable native support for NTFS:

Guide: Enable native NTFS Read/Write in Snow Leopard:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=785376

If you are asking about data recovery for Macs, I haven't really been involved with Macs to any extent. AFAICT, R-Studio seems to be a good commercial tool, while TestDisk is a popular freeware tool.

R-Studio Data Recovery for Windows (commercial) recovers Mac HFS/HFS+ volumes on a Windows box:
http://www.data-recovery-software.net/

R-Studio for Mac:
http://www.r-tt.com/data_recovery_macintosh/

 

[fzabkar]

Freeware Linux Reader for Windows:
http://www.diskinternals.com/linux-reader/

"This program plays the role of a bridge between your Windows and Ext2/Ext3/Ext4, HFS and ReiserFS file systems."