3 TB Western Digital drive, out of MyBook, inaccessible. Seeking advice

Portable Drives My Passport
1

Hello everyone,

I have a 3TB Western Digital MyBook drive that suddenly stopped being recognized.

My understanding is the WD USB PCB is required in order to see the filesystem because of some block size translation. It has the ASM1051W chip, which, I understand, actually does NOT encrypt the drive.

However, setting that aside for a moment…

Even when the USB PCB is removed, and drive is just plugged in to SATA power and data, it only gets recognized in the BIOS briefly upon a cold boot of the system. By the time any operating system tries to address it, it’s gone. If I warm boot, the BIOS doesn’t see it. This happens with both motherboard SATA and PCI card SATA adapters.

Whether the WD PCB is present or not, the drive spins up, and just gives repeated three “gentle” clicks.

I’ve even tried a donor USB PCB from another MyBook. There was no change in behavior.

When connected via USB, repair utilities like testdisk or ddrescue just error out, rapidly, on every sector. It’s as if the disk itself isn’t even attached. When connected via SATA, it doesn’t stay present long enough to be addressed by any OS.

I’m most intrigued by how the drive just stops existing until a cold boot, is detectable again for some number of seconds, and how that’s repeatable.

What’s next? Would there be any hope in a hard drive PCB replacement and ROM swap? Or is it clear that the drive is damaged physically? If the latter, are there any reputable data recovery services that don’t cost several thousands of dollars?

1 Like
2

Hello
your hdd damaged somehow for sure,
even if its physicly safe, I have long experiences with WD HDDs
and saw same problem like yours few times.
your HDD can be fixed (to use as free space) in recovery centers
but if u need your data too must pay alot to them.
or u can try yourself by free softwares but its not clear howmuch can recover in good condition,
I did that few times and most recovered and few times only corrupted files backed!

3

It does suggest the disk is toast

usb sticks are now 2TB and are low cost, backup your backup

1 Like
4

Thank you, xfxforce.

1 Like
5

Hi Vegan. Unfortunately, this is for a friend. I typically conclude these engagements with a gentle message about backing up data. It’s a lot easier to deliver after a successful recovery.

In this specific case, are there any low-percentage options that don’t cost thousands of dollars for clean room disassembly of the platters? For example, is there ANY chance a PCB replacement and ROM swap (~$60 USD) would work? If there’s any chance, it may be worth it.

In case it’s relevant, I obtained an identical unit, WD MyBook 3.0 TB, with the same ASMEDIA ASM1051W chip. I was able to take its SATA drive, connect directly to a PC, and access the data after changing testdisk’s block size to 4096 bytes from 512. This suggests to me that the ASM1051W chip does not encrypt, but the USB bridge simply translates the block size. So I feel like if I could get the non-working SATA drive to remain on and get recognized by a system, I could access its data.

Oh and also the SATA PCBs from both drives, working and not, behave the same way when connected without the drive attached to them: 0 MB on cold boot, disappearing shortly thereafter. This suggests to be that the PCB on the broken drive is OK, but doesn’t see a disk under the hood. Does that make sense?

Again, thanks for your time.

1 Like
6

Hi
yes ofcourse it might work.
we dont know problem is from what and which thing in hdd is not working
maybe its board, i changed them few times on WD and Seagate HDDs
and not recognizing fixed,
maybe works for u too. is there any unusual sound when hdd is working?

about recovery cost I dont know where u live but here in my country its far cheaper than many countries like USA,
we have tools that can access data in encrypted hdds too and recover it

7

Hello xfxforce!

When the drive is on, I hear three very quiet, gentle sounds. This pattern repeats every few seconds and never changes.

I am on the East Coast of the US. Where are you? How could I arrange to hire you to do this?

1 Like
8

can u record that sound and upload it so we can hear?
East Coast oh Im far far away, but Im sure there are guys even better u can find