WD External inaccessible

[danime91]

I need help with a WD 3TB external HD that I bought less than a year ago. It had been working fine up until I moved for college. Then when I tried to plug it in, the computer would not recognize it. I went into disk management and found that the HD had no assigned drive letter, was unknown, and the bar to the right showing disk capacity was completely grayed out, detected capacity was zero. Trying to initialize it gave only device not ready errors, and after trying a couple free data recovery tools, I get mixed results. With some, they don't detect it either, with others, they detect it, can see that it contains data, but are unable to extract it. It makes no whirring or clicking noises, and seems completely fine mechanically. At this point I'm pretty sure its going to cost money no matter what I do, so I'm wondering if I should go with paid data recovery programs or just take it to the professionals.

 

[fzabkar]

How does Microsoft's UVCView utility see the external drive?
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/USB_IDs/UVCView.x86.exe

How do the following utilities see the drive inside the enclosure?

HD Sentinel (DOS / Windows / Linux):
http://www.hdsentinel.com/

HDDScan for Windows:
http://hddscan.com/

UVCView communicates with the bridge board, whereas the other utilities interrogate the actual HDD.

 

[danime91]

Here's how it looks in UVCView.

---===>Device Information<===---
English product name: "My Book 1130"

ConnectionStatus:
Current Config Value: 0x01 -> Device Bus Speed: High
Device Address: 0x01
Open Pipes: 2

===>Endpoint Descriptor<===
bLength: 0x07
bDescriptorType: 0x05
bEndpointAddress: 0x84 -> Direction: IN - EndpointID: 4
bmAttributes: 0x02 -> Bulk Transfer Type
wMaxPacketSize: 0x0200 = 0x200 max bytes
bInterval: 0x00

===>Endpoint Descriptor<===
bLength: 0x07
bDescriptorType: 0x05
bEndpointAddress: 0x03 -> Direction: OUT - EndpointID: 3
bmAttributes: 0x02 -> Bulk Transfer Type
wMaxPacketSize: 0x0200 = 0x200 max bytes
bInterval: 0x00

===>Device Descriptor<===
bLength: 0x12
bDescriptorType: 0x01
bcdUSB: 0x0210
bDeviceClass: 0x00 -> This is an Interface Class Defined Device
bDeviceSubClass: 0x00
bDeviceProtocol: 0x00
bMaxPacketSize0: 0x40 = (64) Bytes
idVendor: 0x1058 = Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
idProduct: 0x1130
bcdDevice: 0x1012
iManufacturer: 0x01
English (United States) "Western Digital"
iProduct: 0x02
English (United States) "My Book 1130"
iSerialNumber: 0x03
English (United States) "574341575A30323931323032"
bNumConfigurations: 0x01

===>Configuration Descriptor<===
bLength: 0x09
bDescriptorType: 0x02
wTotalLength: 0x0020 -> Validated
bNumInterfaces: 0x01
bConfigurationValue: 0x01
iConfiguration: 0x00
bmAttributes: 0xC0 -> Bus Powered
MaxPower: 0x01 = 2 mA

===>Interface Descriptor<===
bLength: 0x09
bDescriptorType: 0x04
bInterfaceNumber: 0x00
bAlternateSetting: 0x00
bNumEndpoints: 0x02
bInterfaceClass: 0x08 -> This is a Mass Storage USB Device Interface Class
bInterfaceSubClass: 0x06
bInterfaceProtocol: 0x50
iInterface: 0x00

===>Endpoint Descriptor<===
bLength: 0x07
bDescriptorType: 0x05
bEndpointAddress: 0x84 -> Direction: IN - EndpointID: 4
bmAttributes: 0x02 -> Bulk Transfer Type
wMaxPacketSize: 0x0200 = 0x200 max bytes
bInterval: 0x00

===>Endpoint Descriptor<===
bLength: 0x07
bDescriptorType: 0x05
bEndpointAddress: 0x03 -> Direction: OUT - EndpointID: 3
bmAttributes: 0x02 -> Bulk Transfer Type
wMaxPacketSize: 0x0200 = 0x200 max bytes
bInterval: 0x00

With HD Sentinel, I tried to do a surface test on it, but the HD doesn't appear in the dropdown menu, although it appears on the main screen.

HDDScan is still verifying, I'll post the results once it's finished.

 

[fzabkar]

Your serial number, "57 43 41 57 5A 30 32 39 31 32 30 32" is encoded in "hexadecimal ASCII" format. In fact it decodes to "WCAWZ0291202", which looks like it might be the serial number of a WD30EZRS HDD. Therefore, unless this same serial number is on the actual enclosure, it appears that the bridge board is communicating with the HDD.

Could you upload a HD Sentinel report (not a surface scan)? Go to Report -> Save TXT Report.

 

[danime91]

Alright, here's the report from HD Sentinel.

-- Physical Disk Information - Disk: #1: WD My Book 1130 --

Hard Disk Summary
-------------------
Hard Disk Number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 1
Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : USB
Vendor Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : VID: 1058, PID: 1130
Hard Disk Model ID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : WD My Book 1130
Firmware Revision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 1012
Hard Disk Serial Number . . . . . . . . . . . . : 1130WCAWZ0291202
Total Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 2861515 MB
Power State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Active
Current Temperature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : ?
Health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : ? (Unknown)
Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : ? (Unknown)

Properties
------------
Vendor Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : ?
Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : OK
Version . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 6 [04C0]
Device Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Disk
ASC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 0
ASCQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 0

SCSI Information
------------------
Removable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported
Failure Prediction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported
Failure Prediction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Disabled

Transfer Rate Information
---------------------------
Total Data Read . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 0 MB, 0 MB since installation (9/20/2012)
Total Data Write . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 0 MB, 0 MB since installation
Average Reads Per Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 0.00 MB
Average Writes Per Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 0.00 MB
Current Transfer Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 0 KB/s
Maximum Transfer Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 0 KB/s
Current Read Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 0 KB/s
Current Write Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 0 KB/s
Current Disk Activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 0 %

 

[fzabkar]

I confess I'm confused by the results. I would connect the HDD directly to a SATA port on your computer's motherboard. You won't have access to your data, but you will be able to determine for certain whether the HDD is faulty.

HD Sentinel appears to be having difficulty communicating with the HDD so it reverts to reporting the identitity information for the bridge board, ie it reports "WD My Book 1130" for the model number rather than WD30EZRX, for example.

The serial number also appears to match what we would find on the label of a WD30EZRX, so this would suggest that maybe the bridge is getting this information from the drive. However, it could also be that this information is stored in the bridge board's firmware. That said, ISTR one thread where a user retrieved a nonsensical (generic?) serial number from a WD bridge board after disconnecting his HDD, so this begs the question, why didn't the bridge report the drive's serial number if it was stored in the bridge's firmware?

The other anomaly is the capacity, 2861515MB. This equates to 5860382720 sectors.

(2 861 515 x 1024 x 1024) / 512 = 5 860 382 720

A WD30EZRX actually has a capacity of 5,860,533,168 sectors. That's a difference of about 75MB. I suspect this may be due to SmartWare or encryption related data at the end of the drive. This would be hidden from the user by the bridge firmware. In short, it appears that the bridge is reporting the drive's capacity, not the drive itself.

As I said, I'm a little confused. Sorry.

 

[danime91]

Alright, so there doesn't seem to be any kind of easy solution to this. Could anybody recommend to me some software that could possibly correct this and make my HD accessible again? At any rate I'm resigned to having to spend money on this one way or another, so might as well see if I can fix this with a paid program before I go out and buy a new one.