External Hard-Drive became RAW. Cannot access data. Questions.

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SyncroScales

SyncroScales

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Jan 1, 2011
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Hello.

I am trying to recover an external hard-drive. It is a Western Digital My Book 2 TB USB 3.

The HDD shows up as RAW. It is recognized in Device Manager (The drivers load with no yellow exclamation marks) but not Disk Management. Windows Explorer tells me to Format the Ext. HDD.

I have not re-formatted the Ext. HDD. If I format the device, what are the chances of recovering the data with Piriforms - Recuva or something else? Is there a way to clone the Ext.HDD and format that unknown 0 byte partition so I can try formatting it and recovering it?

I tried using MiniTool Power Data Recovery 7.0 but it won't recognize the Ext.HDD. Recuva also does not recognize it. I think it is because it is RAW.

I have tried to use testdisk. Their forum is not too helpful. Testdisk views it as Unknown partition. I don't know if I should change the Disk geometry (I am leery about this and all the options I don't understand)? I don't know if I should write the Testdisk MBR? I don't know if I should try and add a partition?

Besides opening up the enclosure and swapping parts I do not know what a data recovery place could do. It is also very expensive.

The drive contains personal photos and videos for someone else. It would be really great to get all of this stuff back.
 
Solution
Boogieman_WD
I've just tried the link again and it works. Even if you can't open it for some reason it's not that big of a deal since it's basically an article with data recovery tools, you can search the web for some more options in order to give them a try.
It's important to try the drive with a different cable, because if it turns out to be something as simple as that, it could resolve everything. What happened when you've tried the drive with different computer?
As for the Windows updates, it might have been an automatic update of some sort, it doesn't really sound like malware, but one can never be too careful. You could try some bootable antivirus programs in order to check the computer without booting to Windows. Here's an article with some...
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Boogieman_WD

Boogieman_WD

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Jul 31, 2014
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Hey there, SyncroScales.

Sorry to hear about the issues you've been experiencing with your external drive :(

If you can manage to clone the drive as you've mentioned, that will be great so that you can work on the clone for data recovery and still have the original intact. However, you'd have to try different cloning software options, to see if you'd be able to get any of them to recognize and clone the drive in this state.
Does Disk Management not recognize the drive at all, or does it see it as a RAW partition, because I'm not sure if I've understood everything correctly?

Taking the drive out of its original enclosure will definitely void the warranty, plus you won't have any use of the data you manage to recover, because the drive is hardware protected and it will be encrypted without the enclosure. So your best bet (not counting professional help) would be to keep trying data recovery software options: https://www.lifewire.com/free-data-recovery-software-tools-2622893.

Other than that, if all else fails and you decide that you want to give it a go with a professional solution, you could check out this link: WD Data Recovery Partners

By the way, you could try the basics as well, if you haven't done it already - try the HDD with a different USB cable and a different computer as well.

I really hope you're able to get to your files. Please keep me updated.
Boogieman_WD
 
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SyncroScales

SyncroScales

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Jan 1, 2011
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Device Manager recognizes the external hard-drive. No exclamation marks. It says My Book.

Disk Management does not recognize anything. Windows Explorer (I think) says to reformat the drive (and assigns a letter). But I have not reformatted it yet.

Safetly remove hardware recognizes something with a drive letter briefly, but then there is no drive letter. Then the external HDD is recognized without a drive letter.

Boogieman_WD The lifewire link for Data Recovery does not work. It's empty. I saw the WD Data Recovery Partners and was contacted by an employee of WD. I tried different computers and do not have a different USB 3 cable (It looks like a figure 8).

When using testdisk and PhotoRec, PhotoRec scanned a lot of files I could not see but recovered nothing, it was empty. I noticed that another WD internal 3.5" HDD's and one in an eSATA enclosure appears to be slightly larger by 1 MB. 2000 GB / 1863 GiB compared to the External HDD that is 2000 MB / 1862 GiB.

I thought of some things I also need to do since the External HDD is recognized in the BIOS.

Can I scan the external HDD and my computer/drives/etc for malware before boot? Any recommendations?

Can I try any data recovery on the external HDD before boot?

My computer might be infected now. I did not do any Windows Updates and I received a message about Windows Explorer wanting to restart the computer to apply changes 'Restart Now' or Restart Later'. Task Manager said the process was in Windows\System32. I used Task Manager to close the window though and did not click anything. (I did not get a screenshot).

I think there is something at the beginning of the HDD and it might be malware. If I can bypass that and do a scan it might work?

I did not open any exe files or zip files. What are the chances that some malware is on my computer now? Could the external HDD be infected and pass it to this computer?
 
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Boogieman_WD

Boogieman_WD

Judicious
Jul 31, 2014
6,050
2
35,960
I've just tried the link again and it works. Even if you can't open it for some reason it's not that big of a deal since it's basically an article with data recovery tools, you can search the web for some more options in order to give them a try.
It's important to try the drive with a different cable, because if it turns out to be something as simple as that, it could resolve everything. What happened when you've tried the drive with different computer?
As for the Windows updates, it might have been an automatic update of some sort, it doesn't really sound like malware, but one can never be too careful. You could try some bootable antivirus programs in order to check the computer without booting to Windows. Here's an article with some helpful info: http://www.howtogeek.com/187037/how-to-scan-and-repair-a-badly-infected-computer-from-outside-windows/
I'd recommend that you don't scan the external drive just yet. If the drive has mechanical faults, this could make things harder for data recovery.
As for bootable data recovery, most of the popular data recovery tools have bootable options as well, so check them out, to see if you get lucky with any of the tools.
 
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