Help! My entire drive has become "Unallocated Space". Am I following the correct procedure to recover my data?

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xie_zhuoxuan

Apr 21, 2018
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Hi guys,
I have this 3Tb WD MyBook (WD Green HDD inside) which I have been using as an external drive that I store all the backup in it. I have built up my own desktop yesterday and decided to take out the drive and use it as a internal HDD so that I don't have to plug in and out.

However, during the installation process for windows, it was shown that my entire disk become an unallocated space, when I finished setting up Windows I immediated went to Disk manager and check (I really care about the data in it) and the diskmgr asked me to to assign the disk MBR or GPT to be able to access it. I assigned it MBR and hope the data comes back but no, all my data is lost.

I am not very familiar with data recovery so I am not sure what to do now and what has caused the problem, the drive was working fine before I taken it out from the enclosure.

What I am doing now is that I have not touched or try to write anything on this drive and downloaded a DiskGenius trying to recovering my partitions.

So my questions are:
1. Am I doing the correct thing?
2. Is it the partition's fault?
3. Should I assign a new volume and recover the files instead the partitions?
4. I have a blank 2TB HDD right now, can I use ghost or sth to duplicate the failed drive into the 2TB HDD to recover everything?

Many thanks guys, really really appreciate your help.


 
Solution
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Once you have it back in the enclosure, use the software I mentioned to scan the drive for files. It may not work but it is worth a try. GetDataBack Simple might be the first one to try, I have had a lot of success with it. Their free version will show you what is there and then you can choose to pay if it finds what you need. Even if it finds your stuff, hold off on buying the license and try iCare Data Recovery which the last time I used it, it was free. If neither find anything then you may have to look into the other links I posted.

Good that you have most important stuff in OneDrive, that is what I do. Not trying to make you feel bad but when these situations occur, if you had a true backup you wouldn't be here :)
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BadAsAl

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So the reason this happened is likely because the hard drive is encrypted and the enclosure is needed to allow Windows to read the drive. I would put the drive back in the enclosure and then run some recovery tools. I have used iCare Data Recovery and GetDataBack successfully. You can try both although GetDataBack will cost a little money to actually get your stuff back if it does find data.

Also, you are not using that drive as a backup drive since it sounds like that is the only place you have that data. This is hopefully not going to be a painful lesson for you, that being that if data is important to you, you should have at least 2 places where it is stored (on your hard drive and also on another hard drive or in the cloud).
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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WD external drives are generally encrypted, in the enclosure hardware.
Take the drive out, and what data was on it is unreadable.

Then, messing about with the partition scheme (MBR) did further damage to the file structure.

Lastly, where was the backup of this data you really care about? Stuff that exists on only one drive may be said to not exist at all.

P.S. - A WD Green is not really a good idea for the boot drive.
 
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BadAsAl

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There is a lot of good info in this thread: https://community.wd.com/t/how-to-decrypt-a-wd-mybook-drive-after-its-removed-from-the-enclosure/146588/49
In the thread, someone has put together a guide to decrypt these drives using Linux: https://github.com/themaddoctor/linux-mybook-tools

And he also mentions "Because you “rebuilt” (i.e. destroyed) the MBR, you will have to use the loop-device method described near the end of the document."
Since you hooked it up and initializes it you might have destroyed the MBR.

There is also mention of how to do this with Windows: https://github.com/andlabs/reallymine

 
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xie_zhuoxuan

Apr 21, 2018
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Hi USAFRet,
Thanks for your answer, Oh no I don't know they are encrypted... can I put it back into the case and run some recovery? (recover file or partition?)
I usually backup my most important files on Onedrive and this WD Green was just a general backup for everything I use (everything often or rarely opened). However, I was selling my previous laptop so I moved all my recent files into this drive, treating it as a USB and planning to copy them out to my new HDD and continue to use this one as a backup. So all my recent files are lost.... I do have another backup drive but it was not updated for about half a year so generally speaking I have lost the data that I used for the recent half a year....



 
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xie_zhuoxuan

Apr 21, 2018
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Thanks for your answer,BadasAI.
I have no way knowing the drive is encrypted...Now I know....
After putting it back to its case, should I recover the file or the partition?
I usually backup my most important files on Onedrive and this WD Green was just a general backup for everything I use (everything, often or rarely opened). However, I was selling my previous laptop so I moved all my recent files into this drive, treating it as a USB and planning to copy them out to my new HDD and continue to use this one as a backup. So all my recent files are lost.... I do have another backup drive but it was not updated for about half a year so generally speaking I have lost the data that I used for the recent half a year....




 
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BadAsAl

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Oct 13, 2009
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Once you have it back in the enclosure, use the software I mentioned to scan the drive for files. It may not work but it is worth a try. GetDataBack Simple might be the first one to try, I have had a lot of success with it. Their free version will show you what is there and then you can choose to pay if it finds what you need. Even if it finds your stuff, hold off on buying the license and try iCare Data Recovery which the last time I used it, it was free. If neither find anything then you may have to look into the other links I posted.

Good that you have most important stuff in OneDrive, that is what I do. Not trying to make you feel bad but when these situations occur, if you had a true backup you wouldn't be here :)
 
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Solution
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xie_zhuoxuan

Apr 21, 2018
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Oh man you are the life saver!!!!
Thank you sooooooooooooooo much!!
I have plugged the disk as USB and ran GetDataBack, it found all my files!!! ALL OF THEM! I bought the licence and the software is recovering my files right now in lightning speed!
Really appreciate your help, BadAsAI. Seriously, you are my hero, I got all my photos back OMG :bounce:




 
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