Hard Drive Recovery

[SoloCon]

I have a customers external USB 3.0 ( WD 2 TB Model: WD20NMVW) hard drive that she dropped. Upon dropping it, the drive would power on, but it did not sound like it was spinning up or anything. Windows was not seeing it neither was Linux.

Upon opening the case to expose the platters for inspection, I noticed the heads seems to be stuck (not touching the platters at this time) and the platters seemed fine (by the looks of them). With the case opened, I powered on the drive via USB and confirmed the heads were not moving. I am assuming this happened to the heads when she dropped the hard drive.

I removed the power from the HD and used a small flat head to push the heads forward just a tad (not much pressure at all) and the heads moved forward but did not touch the platters. I then powered on the drive using the USB port (case still open so I can wee what is happening) and the platters and heads are now moving. This was great news!!

I put the case back on and sealed it. I then connected it to my test system and powered it up. The hard drive powers on but now I hear the spinning and the heads moving. I hear the Windows "ding" sound as if a USB device is/was connected and under USB devices, it shows the device is connected.

I can't see anything listed under hard drives when pulling up disk management. So, I re-scan under disk management and it seems to take about 3-5 minutes before it refreshes and shows nothing...

I remove the disk from the windows PC and connect it to my Linux Box. this time I see if the Bios sees it, which it does. When I boot into Linux, it is not able to see it either.

I was thinking about buying a new Circuit Board but not sure this would fix this issue.

Anyone have any other idea on what to do/try?

 

[Markverhyden]

Did you do this in a clean air enclosure? If you have no experience in this you have significantly increased the probability that there will be data loss. Possibly significant. Given that the float space between the platter and head is in the .05mm range there is no way you can tell if the head touched the platter or not when you moved it.

And, if it's like other WD Passports I've seen, the USB2SATA bridge performs some type of compression/encryption to the data.

 

[Larry Sabo]

I think you've done more than enough already--practically guaranteeing the destruction of your customer's data. You opened the case to allow unfiltered air onto the platters, thereby almost guaranteeing a head crash once it's spun up. Then you ran it with the cover off, which allows the heads to flop about because they are held in alignment by the head screw through the cover. Even running a drive after it has been dropped is playing Russian Roulette because there's a good chance the heads were damaged in the drop and will now score the media, making data recovery impossible. Your only hope now is to 1. pray your customer doesn't read this post in TN, and 2. get the drive to a data recovery specialist who can properly assess the drive and attempt to recover the data if it's not too late and your customer considers the recovery worth the expense (which you've cranked up by your misguided efforts).

 

[lcoughey]

Please excuse my being blunt, but if you are asking if you should change the PCB to try to fix a dropped drive tells me that you are in over your head. At this point, Larry is correct in your options. I can only hope that if you do send the drive to a professional lab, you don't expect your client to pay any extra fees brought on by your messing around with the drive...unfortunately, this could mean the difference between the cost of a minor and major data recovery price.

Hopefully we are over reacting and you already confirmed with your client that their data wasn't worth the minimum price of professional data recovery labs ($300USD with 300DDR and $350CAD with RecoveryForce, for example).

 

[SoloCon]

Rest assured this HD has no data that is worth recovering. I should have mentioned this in my original post, and for that, I apologies for not mentioning it!!

I am doing this probono for a local church who would like to keep/re-use the HD. As it is a non-profit origination, I figured why not give it a try and see what I can do. First time for everything right?

I will dig deeper on the inner workings of HD's (first time I took one apart) to get a better understanding of them.

As far as this HD goes, I will still play around with it and see what I can come up with. I have ordered the church a 4 TB NAS drive and will donate it to them. Tis the season to be giving, and getting that tax write off.

Thanks for everyone's feedback.

 

[glennd]

Anyone have any other idea on what to do/try?

Carefully remove the platters from the drive, clean and polish them as best you can, attach some colourful ribbon and hang them on your christmas tree.

 

[Markverhyden]

Rest assured this HD has no data that is worth recovering. I should have mentioned this in my original post, and for that, I apologies for not mentioning it!!

Saying that in the OP will help keep other members from thinking you are a loose cannon on deck. I'm like that with stuff that is new to me. "Don't want <insert widget name>? I'll get rid of it for you" So I can fiddle around with it to see how it works.

 

[Larry Sabo]

Rest assured this HD has no data that is worth recovering. I am doing this probono for a local church who would like to keep/re-use the HD.

Phew, that's a relief! I would recommend donating a new drive, rather than a used one, given how drives fail so easily and frequently these days. otherwise, they get to depend on the drive only to be disappointed that it fails so quickly and unexpectedly. Good on you for making the donation; just make sure it's not a Seagate product as they are so unreliable and difficult to recover data from.

 

[fencepost]

a local church who would like to keep/re-use the HD.

I know folks who use refurbished drives, and even that makes my teeth itch. The minimal cost savings of a questionable drive are nothing compared to the potential loss if "questionable" becomes "failed ugly."

A drive that's fallen may or may not be trashed (how far? off at the time? carpet or hard floor?) particularly if it was off and comes up OK, but if it's showing any signs of trouble at all it should be taken out of service.