[Blackpool] HDD data recovery

Fri Feb 5 13:02:56 UTC 2016

On a scale of ‘unicorns and rainbows’ to ‘burning pits of Hell’, I’d place it at ‘dire’. This is definitely mechanical rather than logical.

Here’s the text of a post I made on a forum, giving a bit more detail, along with a Soundcloud link to a recording:

I have a 3TB WD Green disk that was bought as part of a WD Elements external HDD. The external HDD was used for a home media server and was in use for approximately 60-120 minutes per day. It's around twelve months old.

Recently, the disk appeared to show signs of failure, that I've only recognised in retrospect - directories would show as being inaccessible, but I put this down to permissions issues with the server, rather than the disk. The permissions issue would resolve itself by restarting the server. Eventually, the HDD wouldn't show at all. However, when I plugged it in to a different computer, it worked fine. I thought this could then be an issue with the server (an ancient laptop) and its USB ports (even though the WD Elements has its own power supply). I tried a USB Y-cable with the HDD's SS-USB cable and once again it worked. However, after a week or so, videos being streamed from the server would fail and the drive stopped being recognised, so it looked like it might not be a power issue.

I've since tried the Elements unit on different computers, as well as removed the HDD from the unit to try in a different external case (with different power supply and USB cable). All it does now is spin up and spin down several times before giving up (using the Elements interface) or just continually spins up and spins down (using an alternative external interface); with the latter, if it's left on for an extended period it can eventually spin up and stay spinning for 20-30 seconds before spinning down. Other than some occasional light clicks at the peak of it spinning up, there is none of the normal clicking that I might expect to hear from it. After a short while, I'll get a dialogue box telling me "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer", which I assume means something is recognisable.

I've installed Smartmontools but can't get anything useful from it. I think the device is recognised as /dev/disk2, but when I try to run an interactive session on it, I get the error "Smartctl open device: /dev/disk2 failed:"

I've made a recording of the activity. It's not great quality, but hopefully it can provide an indication of disk activity:

https://soundcloud.com/j7e/western-digital-wd30ezrx-failure <https://soundcloud.com/j7e/western-digital-wd30ezrx-failure>

I’ve found a couple of specialists in Manchester and one online who’s suggested that it looks like head failure. Depending on the condition of the platter, data recovery is possible. With the WD disks, though, they’re notoriously more difficult to work with, which can bump prices up a bit.

Some advice for anybody looking to break in to a lucrative career - get in to data recovery!

J

> On 5 Feb 2016, at 11:58, @surlydev <surly at surlydev.net> wrote:
> 
> I have spinrite and was going to suggest it but James' email made it sound like the disk was rattling or worse.
> 
> How bad is it James?
> From: Arthur Garlick <mailto:arthur_garlick at hotmail.com>
> Sent: ‎05/‎02/‎2016 09:44
> To: James Page <mailto:jmsp.1983 at gmail.com>; Mike Hull <mailto:blackpool at mailman.lug.org.uk>
> Subject: Re: [Blackpool] HDD data recovery
> 
> I listen to the Security Now podcast https://twit.tv/episodes?filter[shows]=1636 which has Steve Gibson on it (proper tin foil hat guy, hoot to listen to when he speaks about Internet of Things especially) his product is this: https://www.grc.com/spinrite.htm he makes some big claims and I've been sceptical but having listened to him talk for years, he knows his stuff and I'd give it a try if I had a disk failure.  But not for a total mechanical issue as you said. 
> 
> 
> I will be at the makerspace tomorrow, coding has started on the big robot and I have a little robot that I am going to finish.
> 
> 
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35442969
> Listening to Bill Gates desert island disks, right now, what a guy - who has done more for humanity... Gates or Torvalds?  
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> > Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2016 18:16:26 +0000
> > From: jmsp.1983 at gmail.com
> > To: blackpool at mailman.lug.org.uk
> > Subject: [Blackpool] HDD data recovery
> > 
> > Don't suppose any of you can recommend a local/regional specialist who
> > deals in HDD data recovery, can you? I know there are plenty out there, but
> > I don't know which are reputable and affordable (big emphasis on the
> > latter). It's a mechanical issue, so software recovery is out of the window.
> > 
> > 
> > PS - don't buy Western Digital!
> > 
> > 
> > Best wishes,
> > James
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> > Blackpool at mailman.lug.org.uk
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>      
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