Hi all. Thanks for reading this.
So, some years back (after 2010) I was using a 1tb my book (WDBAAF001HBK-01). Eventually, the USB connector died, taking at least a few associated SMT components around it with it, destroying the interface board beyond all repair (the interface board itself is now long gone IIRC).
However, the hard drive itself (wd10ears, 00y5b1 ) was (and I am fairly sure still is) perfectly fine.
I put the drive in a magnetic bag and packed it away; being utterly broke and not even having the time to mess with warranteeing it (being a 24/7 family caregiver kinda does that to your life) I put it in a magnetic bag and packed it safely away.
The drive has data on it that is completely irreplaceable and I do not have the money to send it off for any kind of competent data recovery.
Recently I got a vantec sata to USB setup, and hooked the drive up to my laptop. The adapter is working perfectly - the drive, however, doesn’t show up in “my computer” ( I am using XP still … no, don’t ask, does what I need it to atm). Under “computer management” subsection “disk management” the drive shows, but it is not initialized (I have not tried to initialize it, as my weak google fu doesn’t tell me if doing so will tamper with the data on the drive).
In device management, the drive shows under “disk drives,” and it says the drive is working fine in properties there.
The drive makes none of the dying or dead HDD sounds and spins up - no clicking, shrieking, any of that nonsense.
I’ve done a little bit on the disk with “TestDisk” (not familiar with the program, found some referring to it, did a bit of following my nose), TD popped up with “Partition sector doesn’t have the endmark 0xAA55” and 25% into the quick search it hasn’t found any partitions.
DMDE (something else I found and followed my nose in a bit) doesn’t show all zero sectors - I’m going out on a limb and guessing that means the data is still there.
WD data lifeguard diagnostics quick test says:
Test Option: QUICK TEST
Model Number: WDC WD10EARS-00Y5B1
Unit Serial Number: WD-WMAV51853200
Firmware Number: 80.00A80
Capacity: 1000.20 GB
SMART Status: PASS
Test Result: PASS
Test Time: 20:40:19, December 28, 2016
I’m suspect I’m probably getting screwed out of my irreplaceable data (so far) by some proprietary WD software/hardware …
Does anybody else have any ideas of what’s going on and how/if it may be possible to recover the data?
