Help! All data in mybook live gone and owner password unknown

WD Legacy Products My Book Live
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Yes I’d say 99% photos.There are a few spreadsheets, word docs and pdfs too. They seem to be intact and sorted by type. Some video clips as well and they also seem intact.

The folder structure and filename recovery is massive to me, being able to re-catalogue (only took a few hours)them allows me to pretty much return to what I had before the hack.

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I received my discount code yesterday, after logging in and escalating my case.

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Apologies in advance if I’m so dense as to have missed something. S-D-R returned my drive on a WD 2TB Passport 2626 - I’ve already connected it to two separate Windows computers, and zero results: both computers recognize the drive, but neither assigns a letter, and WD’s Dashboard tool reports the drive as empty/no volumes. Windows disk management tools see three volumes on the drive, but no data. Tried both USB 2 and 3 ports. Am I missing something here? Mac/Linux-formatted drive? X-ray’ed en route? Outside and inner package appear intact/no damage. I’ve emailed Zachary, but throwing this out to the group while I wait for an answer - thanks in advance.

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Update to my own question - Zachary responded more quickly than I would have guessed. It appears it’s a Mac-formatted drive - he’s provided a shipping label to send back the drive.

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Interesting update! After complaining to WD that most of my data was not retrieved by Secure Data Services, I asked if I could get my old hard drives back to try to follow some of the processes I’ve read on this forum with software on my PC. WD said the HD’s would have been destroyed but I could ask Secure Data if they still had them, which to my surprise they did! Zachary got a return label from WD and my old NAS arrived this morning! I have a SATA USB cradle that I can connect to my PC and will try to see what I can recover myself. I need to familiarise myself with the various methods used so will read back through and will post my findings. Does anyone have any software recommendations that worked for them? I don’t mind spending a few quid if people have had success.
I also received a discount voucher which WD extended to 20th November, and decided to take advantage of an 8Tb EX2 Ultra as it was already discounted on site so ended up costing me £173.40. It’s still in it’s wrapping as I’m after a Synology DS220+ so keeping an eye out in the Black Friday sales. If I can get a 2 x 4Tb version for under £500 I’ll flip the WD unit and maybe make a couple of quid! If not I’ll see how the WD unit performs.

Right - off to search the thread on the best software to use to see if I can recover more than Secure Data did. :slightly_smiling_face:

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SO I’ve connected one of my returned hard drives to my PC via a SATA docking station, and although it does not come up as a drive with a letter, I can see it in Disk Manager. How do I get one of these recovery programs to recognise the drive if it’s not coming up with a drive letter to scan? Do these programs recognise the drive some other way or do I need to do some sort of configuration to map the drive?

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Got my disks back from Secure Data today. I have to say I was disappointed with their recovery efforts. I only got “raw” data, no metadata like some others and no file names or directory structure. My own recovery efforts yielded some folders with file names, dates, creator and so forth. My own efforts also yielded folders with individual names which contained some files by individuals. Poor effort on their part, guess I’ll have to continue this reconstruction on my own.

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Hi Flipper26 - how did you get access to the disks? When I connect mine via a USB caddy it appears in the Disc Management tool but I can’t see how I use recovery software if I can’t map the drive. I’ve downloaded some recovery software from Lsoft but the drive in the USB caddy isn’t available for me to search. What software are you using?

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I’m just using a Sabrent USB 3.0 SATA/IDE hard drive adapter. I’ve used LSoft Active file recovery as well as Disk Internals, Wondershare, EaseUS (recovered the fewest items). I think only Stellar didn’t allow me to see and access the disks, all the others were fine. I’m going to try using some LINUX software next.

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Thanks. Maybe I need a different adapter. I’ll try the version you mentioned and see how I go. Best of luck with your recovery. :slightly_smiling_face: