Hello all, it is weekend so i thought maybe i should type my problem here also. Maybe someone experienced this or has more info.
I was moving my 16TB WD Gold, WD161KRYZ drive to a new computer. I’ve done this many many times in different computers, but this time i got a nasty surprise.
Upon first boot into Windows 11 (new computer) i couldn’t find the drive. I shutdown and checked the SATA cable. All was fine, so i unplugged another drive i also placed (SSD) which was working in Windows and plugged in the WD drive (thinking maybe faulty cable).
Then i got worried because Windows was stuck in loading and i could hear some noise from the drive. Never got into Windows until i removed the drive again.
Drive not working in new, old and another computer.
Drive makes looping noise like it is trying to start up when attached to SATA in computers
Attached to older USB to SATA adapter.
I can hear the drive starting like normal (no repeating noises, just regular startup noise).
No station letter, but drive is visible in Windows drive manager, but with no partition
SMART data using GSmartControl is completely healthy
Tried a few data recovery scans from different software, but all gave I/O or similar errors. Didn’t do any drive tests or things that would write something to drive. No readable partitions
Several software said there was a small (around 566GB) MBR partition. I was using at least 12 TB so i am sure partition was GPT before
Testdisk showing wrong capacity: 607 GB / 566 GiB used (16TB drive). Other drives showing the correct capacity. Btw, Testdisk shows different serial number than the number on sticker.
Tried connecting just the WD Gold drive (disconnected all others) and boot up in Ubuntu from a usb drive. Showed drive, but couldn’t do anything else.
Was not a bootable disk. Just data (without Windows).
No physical damage and was carefully taken out of old system and into new. Other drives (3 ssd’s) were all functioning correctly in new computer.
It is still within limited 5 year warranty, but i do want to know my chances in data recovery if i can still pay for it. With warranty i know i will lose all data. There is a lot of data on it and 4 days ago my backup drive failed (in another system). However this was not so strange, because it was old, but my replacement is not here yet. Besides that i somehow managed to have corrupted data uploaded in the cloud (from that old backup drive). It seemed fine, but can’t open most random files i tried. These last weeks, luck wasn’t on my side.
Anyone has any tips or info, let me know. I have a tiny bit of hope left and thinking it might be the controller/firmware. No clue if this would make it easier/better for data recovery.
I had another idea. I tried another computer with another motherboard supporting SATA set to ‘hot swap’ (most motherboards do). This way Windows boots while drive is connected to motherboard.
However, that did help to get the right info and capacity in software like Testdisk. It also made clear that the data is not accessible. In Testdisk i also can’t execute a short/long selftest, but somehow on first info page (with smart info) it says short test passed.
Maybe i am gonna let it analyse, but that depends on price/possibility for professional data recovery. If i can’t do that i can always let it analyse (read that this can take days/weeks with high capacity drives if 1,5TB already takes 4 days).
I tried with a new usb 3.0 sata usb adaptor (Ugreen up to 20TB with power adaptor), but the drive doesn’t even show up. So no partition info. Somehow it only shows up with the older adaptor.
To be sure i tried the new adaptor with some other hdd’s which all worked fine (and much better/faster with the new adaptor).
Thanks for the suggestions. However i don’t think i will try that, because so far i tried more things with other tools and everything points to hardware failure.
I tried something else through Ubuntu with ddrescue, but it confirms that the drive is lost. Has been running for a few hours. I don’t hear hear any noise. Drive always made some noise when reading/writing since i got it (even contact support back then).
Not sure yet if i will pay for data recovery which so far is all at least 1000,- Euro and higher to have it analysed and I know that a lot of times the recovered data can be far from complete and that is a big chance the data i will see back is not what i really need on such large drive.
Or a bunch of nameless data files and all that. Would have been easier if i had way less data (don’t need all 14TB back but having this much data makes it probably a nightmare).
Also got the tip to make sure the drive is still under (written) warranty, when a company is going to perform data recovery on it.
Also don’t know what happened in the first place, but we are suspecting the electric in our house. I had my backup drive dying few days before (which was older drive). I also learned i need to check my files which are uploaded to the cloud sometimes. That older backup drive had corrupted data that was uploaded to the cloud. Not all data is unreadable in cloud, but sadly the most important stuff is. In previous month(s) i also had a PSU dying, SSD died and some other non-computer equipment. This could all be a sad coincidence.
