So I have a functioning Hard Drive now… I only partially know what I did but here it goes…
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Bought a used PCB board on ebay from a fried hard drive and crossed my fingers that it was still a good board… (It was the ‘exact’ same part number as mine)
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Tried it out when I got it. Computer initially found the drive, then disconnected itself after about 10 seconds and would not reconnect… I tried unplugging into different USB ports 3.0/2.0 etc…
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At some point in all of this I tried deleting all of the drivers for the MyBook/SAS anything related…
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Dejected, I tried the old board again… For some reason it seemed to have reset something and all of a sudden it had drives size specs re-established. Still took forever to connect, and it would let me try anything every time I connected it (took a lot of patience) and still could not use any Windows programs to re-format/partition the drive.
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I then decided to try Linux again (Ubuntu) from a flash drive on another laptop I have that normally runs windows 7 and only has legacy usb 2.0 ports.
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Used the “Drives” program (I think) and formatted / partition to NTFS. (It worked this time since the drive size specs had been re-established again)
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Went back to my windows 8 computer to use a software recovery program (EaseUS Data Recovery)… and recovered nearly 95% of the data I thought was lost forever.
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Copied all data to another drive
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Repartitioned/formatted the WD Drive again
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Copied the data back to it and it seems to be working perfectly (plugged into my Wireless Router.).
Personal Lesson: To Backup means … (an extra copy of your info)… not just a data drive that you keep in a safe place. Make sure you always have data stored in at least 2 locations to avoid a potential disaster of losing decades of photos etc…
Not sure how much this will help others but I can tell you I am a happy camper… Good Luck all!
-Jason
