WD My Book dropped -- Windows sees the device but as uninitialzed

cytherian · 17 Mar 2022

I'm troubleshooting this problem for a good friend. She managed to drop her WD My Book external hard drive on a floor, maybe a 3 foot drop. It was not plugged in. She has a TON of photos on it and does not have any other backup. When plugged into any Windows 10 computer, Windows Explorer does not show an accessible drive. Disk Management shows a device, but it's considered unallocated / uninitialized. I don't know if the drive head typically parks right over the MBR or other root partition data, but I'm wondering if that got damaged in the drop and the rest of the drive is perfectly fine.

About 8 years ago, I once troubleshooted an old HDD and wish I'd saved off my recovery steps in a document, because I did manage to extract data from a damaged drive. But perhaps there are better methods now. I searched around and found a couple of tools mentioned. I'm presently running the latest free Partition Recovery Wizard, which won't provide any functions to fix issues, but I'm hoping it can check and detect if there's anything recoverable. I did spot a topic about MPW version 9.1 as being the last free edition that offers some function for fixing issues, so I've downloaded that and plan to use it if this drive has promise.

WD My Book dropped -- Windows sees the device but as uninitialzed-partition-recovery-wizard_wd-mybook-lost-partition.jpg

If there's a good topic that already exists covering this well that I've missed, please post. And of course, any recommendations on other software tools that might help is VERY welcome!

Samuria · 17 Mar 2022

It seems to have found the partition ok you may be lucky

steve108 · 17 Mar 2022

@jumanji,
Since you have data recovery expertise, maybe you have something to contribute to OP's situation.

cytherian · 17 Mar 2022

Yes, a good sign that a partition is detected.

I don't know what physically happens in most cases when a HDD is dropped and partition information is lost. Is it merely a magnetic contamination of file table info or MSR by improper head movement that screws up the ability to read partitions--usually recoverable--or can there also be physical damage to the media whereby the drive is unusable? Or if the nature of physical damage is small enough, can the drive mark those sectors as bad and link over them?

One important note -- when plugged in, the HDD is relatively quiet. No unusual noises, just a slight hum. You can feel a little bit of vibration from disk platter rotation. In the midst of the scan, the drive doesn't seem to run all the time. Maybe it's doing it in spurts.

UPDATE:
OK, it completed. The checkbox became enabled. And naturally, the offer to restore the partition was contingent upon making a purchase of over $100 USD. I went ahead and installed version 9.1. I don't see any shortcut method, and I don't know what LBA to designate to focus on just the partition info that needs fixing, so running with full scan. But wow... it's SO much slower than the newer version.

It's an 8TB drive. The developers must've optimized the software in the latest release to deal with multi-terabyte drives more efficiently. After a full half-hour, it's still not even above 0%. At that rate, it'll take days to complete.

- - - Updated - - -

I tried using Test Disk... thought it wouldn't be so bad as I'm comfortable with command prompt. But I got stuck... It did note a read error at a specific LBA, but I don't know if that's useful to help narrow the range in MPW so that it won't take so long. I don't know if this tool may have limits on disk size, so it might be a waste of time going any further with it.

WD My Book dropped -- Windows sees the device but as uninitialzed-testdisk-lba-wd-mybook.jpg

MaloK · 17 Mar 2022

The error you are getting are because it doesn't even finishes to read the first sector (16064/254=63) so the end of sector 0 of what looks like a 16k block ntfs is not readable.

I sure hope your disk was parked correctly when this happened, but it looks bad.

You need to run a bad block recovery software before attempting partition recovery. And hope the disk is Physically correct.

cytherian · 17 Mar 2022

Ugh. Well, that sounds like a major PITA. I had let Test Disk keep running... I took a few screen captures and appended above. It did finish, but then didn't report on a partition to select. This external drive did not have more than 1 partition.

What would you recommend for testing bad blocks and recovering them?

MaloK · 17 Mar 2022

First of all If you can have the disk directly connected to a SATA port on any computer that you could use as a "Technician computer" could have a drastic impact on the outcome.

Second wait for jumanji's opinion as he is well known to have successfully Brought many lost causes to life.

My method of recovery is often frowned upon because it implies having real time access to the drive and requires some dispositions to operate.

But as real bad block recovery goes there's only: Spinrite, HDDReg, DRevitalize for me, and for partition recovery TestDisk and HDAT2.

Samuria · 17 Mar 2022

Use WD own software to test the disk its specific for their drives Software and Firmware Downloads | WD Support

cytherian · 17 Mar 2022

MaloK said:

First of all If you can have the disk directly connected to a SATA port on any computer that you could use as a "Technician computer" could have a drastic impact on the outcome.
Second wait for jumanji's opinion as he is well known to have successfully Brought many lost causes to life.

It's an external drive, so no SATA port connection possible. Only USB. I have browsed around and seen jumanji's responses to people seeking help and he certainly appears knowledgeable. When he has time, I'll look forward to any advice he can lend!

Samuria said:

Use WD own software to test the disk its specific for their drives Software and Firmware Downloads | WD Support

Thanks! I haven't had to troubleshoot a WD drive in a while. Completely forgot they have some diagnostic tools. Will check 'em out.

Well, this is interesting. So I go into the utility and the SMART DRIVE check fails. None of the other tests will start. So I check the "Drive Erase" menu to see what's there... and I note a message about 5 failed password attempts. Now I'm wondering, if this drive has been appropriated by Windows 10 security and thus can't be viewed on anything but the owner's computer? Could that be why I've had issues running these other utilities? <-- No. Same error on the owner's laptop, so that's not the issue.

WD My Book dropped -- Windows sees the device but as uninitialzed-wd_unlock-drive.jpg

MaloK · 17 Mar 2022

cytherian said:

It's an external drive, so no SATA port connection possible. Only USB.

Dont worry it's SATA alright in there.