WD Caviar Green HDD failed. Any way to recover files?

[Toasty]

Re: WD Caviar Green HDD failed. Any way to recover files?

Post 11, again. Please answer.

What does WD's software say of the SMART data?

[dmill89]

Re: WD Caviar Green HDD failed. Any way to recover files?

I'm still not sure but I have emails on there somewhere regarding our local scouts group that would be useful to get back. And family pictures. Are they worth the cost of a professional recovery? I guess I could spend up to £100, but how much does it cost? More research methinks.

Professional recovery services generally run $800-$1000 minimum.

[b700029]

Re: WD Caviar Green HDD failed. Any way to recover files?

Professional recovery services generally run $800-$1000 minimum.

That's for hardware recovery (which is what he needs), software recovery (i.e. image the drive and find the files) is usually a bit cheaper --- but that's something you can do yourself for free.

[colormebad]

Re: WD Caviar Green HDD failed. Any way to recover files?

You can also pm me and i will get any data off the drive for you for free...Have done this for about 35 years' so email or pm me for some free help if you like....455stroker@comcast.net

[Keatah]

Re: WD Caviar Green HDD failed. Any way to recover files?

Platter swapping is not something you can do without a specialized tool and a clean room. Data recovery labs would prefer to never remove platters, many like to swap in other components. Or if they change platters, then its done as a whole assembly, removing them from the drive in one unit, then oftentimes putting them on a spin table. To the layman, this would be a big-ass open-air hard disk and motor.

Freezing the drive can cause frost on the platters and crash the heads. This is last resort option. Sometimes it doesn't need to be completely frozen, just a good temperature cycling up and down will free a stiction situation. The point being is you don't want to spin up a disk that has frost on the insides.

Heads in modern drives still move as one solid assembly and generally read/write one at a time for simplicity's sake. As the spinners get more sophisticated and need additional speed to compete with solids, we'll be splitting the head assembly into 2 or more separate arms - allowing simultaneous access to more than one platter more often. Think of it as a raid built into one housing, multiple heads accessing different platters at different times, simultaneously. But for now its mostly a serial operation. One head, one track, one sector, at a time.

Hitting and tapping and general banging-around of the HDA is not a good idea. You can knock something loose. Or dislodge dust or other particles. Perhaps even throwing something out of tolerance or cracking a solder joint.

Regarding backups. For the typical home user - just make copies of your most important stuff and store it at a relative's house. Off-site, safe, secure, encrypt the files (or whole drive) if you need additional security. Cheap. Effective. And not dependent on storms in the cloud.

HDD's are generally not meant to be re-built by anyone other than the original manufacturer or a full-service data recovery operation like Kroll-Ontrack or the many other outfits. And in most cases, once a disk has developed a problem, the pros recommend a rebuild for the purposes of getting the data off - nothing more. Repair the drive, get the data, replace the drive.

If you are still working with this disk PM me and perhaps we can come up with a solution! Maybe at no cost.

[Topcat]

Re: WD Caviar Green HDD failed. Any way to recover files?

Maybe at no cost.

So, what are you trying to spam us with?! I highly doubt he's still diddling with it 4 months later.....

[Keatah]

Re: WD Caviar Green HDD failed. Any way to recover files?

Perhaps he put it in a box and stuffed it under the bed. Awaiting a time when it may be more cost effective.

Spam? Please.. Ultimately if I can't do anything with a disk, then my recommendation would be a pro service, any pro service. Not any. But you get the idea. I offer my expertise to the little guy for free, a hobby if you will, been doing it for years.

If I can't do anything for free, then the cost would be ~ $1,000 of a professional operation. I leave it to the drive's owner to pick where to go. So there is no hidden motive or spam.

I offer it for free because someone once offered it to me for free many many years ago.

Please keep preconceived notions about me out of this thread. They're pointless. btw: I know folks holding on to drives, saving bit by bit for the day they can afford to hire a professional lab.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: WD Caviar Green HDD failed. Any way to recover files?

If you take out the platters, you would need to rewrite the servo information (if the data on the drive is not important) - servowriters cost at least $50,000 each, and are often custom made for a particular drive model.
Even a head swap could necessitate the rewriting of servo information, because the heads could be significantly (even though minutely) off target after swapping the heads.

$50,000? =Fat chance!
Even the most expensive tools I saw are more like $10,000. A PC 3000 can repair problems related to head access. (If the head isn't physically bad)

And with $50,000, I rather get 100+ GB of RAM!

[Topcat]

Re: WD Caviar Green HDD failed. Any way to recover files?

Perhaps he put it in a box and stuffed it under the bed. Awaiting a time when it may be more cost effective.

Spam? Please.. Ultimately if I can't do anything with a disk, then my recommendation would be a pro service, any pro service. Not any. But you get the idea. I offer my expertise to the little guy for free, a hobby if you will, been doing it for years.

If I can't do anything for free, then the cost would be ~ $1,000 of a professional operation. I leave it to the drive's owner to pick where to go. So there is no hidden motive or spam.

I offer it for free because someone once offered it to me for free many many years ago.

Please keep preconceived notions about me out of this thread. They're pointless. btw: I know folks holding on to drives, saving bit by bit for the day they can afford to hire a professional lab.

Well that's good...because that was sure a strange first post.....and spamish stuff is frowned upon very much here.....

FWIW, I've been a computer geek for 20+ years.....and I don't packrat/hoard broken hardware, nor do most the techs I know.....it goes in the dumpster or to the recycler... If I kept all the unrepairable crap I've encountered, I'd be buried in it... I tend to hang onto worthless but working stuff, as I hate seeing it wasted....but broken, nahh.

[ratdude747]

Re: WD Caviar Green HDD failed. Any way to recover files?

Well that's good...because that was sure a strange first post.....and spamish stuff is frowned upon very much here.....

FWIW, I've been a computer geek for 20+ years.....and I don't packrat/hoard broken hardware, nor do most the techs I know.....it goes in the dumpster or to the recycler... If I kept all the unrepairable crap I've encountered, I'd be buried in it... I tend to hang onto worthless but working stuff, as I hate seeing it wasted....but broken, nahh.

Umm... you kept that "broken" supermicro PDSGE... (broken until I fixed it, that is).

[Topcat]

Re: WD Caviar Green HDD failed. Any way to recover files?

Umm... you kept that "broken" supermicro PDSGE... (broken until I fixed it, that is).

That was in my 'get back to' pile... Bad HDD's dont make it into that.

[Keatah]

Re: WD Caviar Green HDD failed. Any way to recover files?

$50,000? =Fat chance!
And with $50,000, I rather get 100+ GB of RAM!

If 1 drive is holding all your plans to an SSTO engine, and it goes bad.. Well, I promise you you'll be quite happy to pay $50,000 for whatever equipment is necessary to retrieve your data. You'll also be quite enthusiastic enough to give the tech a bonus.

Well that's good...because that was sure a strange first post.....and spamish stuff is frowned upon very much here.....

FWIW, I've been a computer geek for 20+ years.....and I don't packrat/hoard broken hardware, nor do most the techs I know.

I lurk all over the place. Seeing some of the advice about swapping the platters without a care in the world.. boy does that irk me but good and really riled me up today. Do the folks giving advice to swap heads and platters straight away have any idea how delicate and precise these mechanisms are? So many things need to be in place and go right for this type of repair to work.

Crap there's an article on eHow that says by getting an old drive, and taking out some of the platters and putting them into your other drive, that you can upgrade the capacity.

I've been asked to work on such drives. And the folks that screwed up the drive have no idea what they are doing.

I would rather have many of these data recovery companies go out of business, or charge a small amount for the small guy. When it comes to a big corporation, who cares then. Charge up the wazzooo!

Of course, with drives so cheap for the past 5 and 10 years, there's little excuse to not have a 2nd one acting as a backup. A good solid backup will save you every time from all sorts of hardware failures.

PSsstt.. shhhhss... Send me your drive, I can fix it!
Meanwhile I'll send it to Ontrack and when I get it back from them I'll say - there, I fixed it, and charge you 2x what they charged me! Can't beat that eh?

[Wester547]

Re: WD Caviar Green HDD failed. Any way to recover files?

Of course, with drives so cheap for the past 5 and 10 years, there's little excuse to not have a 2nd one acting as a backup.

The prices of mechanical hard drives have at least doubled since the floods of Thailand, though, but I know that's more recent than 5-10 years since.

One reason why I don't think I'd even trust a second backup is, as has been discussed upon in this forum before, because all modern drives use perpendicular recording technology and that has shown itself to be less reliable than older longitudinal recording technology (files eventually disappearing). The spots to 'read' and 'write' data on the platters are smaller and don't hold charges nearly as effectively, so now adays, in modern drives (especially larger ones), as PCBONEZ said along with a few others, if I remember, like old VHS tapes, the drives will succumb more to wear and tear, especially if the charges aren't refreshed (deleted/rewritten to). Of course, I suppose this wouldn't be such a problem if you have many a DVD to burn data to, or if you have an enterprise class drive (and they're even more expensive)... or if you just have many old LRT drives.

Even then, I know it's somewhat foolhardy to ever entrust to something as fragile as a hard drive to be a good backup. Not to say hard drives can't be well built, though - I think a well built and well treated hard drive is ultimately what determines its lifespan, more than what company it's from or its specs (you could argue your 'run of fortune' is also partakes that, but even then...). Still... after learning about how unreliable PRT seems to be by comparison to LRT, combined with being more rickety (lighter, and firmware problems atop that... and other things), it's no wonder newer (and significantly larger) drives don't seem to hold up as well as ones of old. And I'm somewhat scared to use my more 'modern' drives after learning about PRT. Of course, older IDE/LRT drives, as far as they go... my only issue with them is how easy it is to break IDE pins and how encumbering IDE cables are. I have respect for the evolution to SATA, though when that comes in tow with PRT (I know that there are, or were, LRT SATA drives, but still)....

Regarding the failure of 1TB Caviar Green, I don't think it helps that Caviar Greens seem to spin down and park its heads after a short span by default. Not only that, but Western Digital have something called 'Data Lifeguard' that runs every 8 hours unless you turn it off (auto-offline data collection) with GSmartControl. I believe this applies to all green drives. When it's on you'll know it because it produces more heat by 'scanning' the drive automatically for bad sectors. It makes something of a 'buzzing' sound (which stops if you access the drive). I don't think having that on by default helps either, especially since it runs every 8 hours.

Well, I've also read that green drives just aren't built up to the quality that blue and black drives are. Or maybe just enterprise drives? In my experience, though, Caviar Green drives are good (but I've only used a WD6400AACS in my system and a WD10EADS [2-platter version] in a MyBook). I also like what I've used of the Scorpio Blue drives (in my case, a WD5000BEVT). Very quiet and very fast. I would say the Scorpio Blue is the quietest drive I've ever used, no hyperbole. I've had more Western Digital failures with their earlier drives; I stated somewhere earlier this year, on this board, that I had a WD800JB fail hard on me. I also had a Western Digital 120GB, 40GB, 30GB, and 8GB fail hard on me too, though I can't remember the exact model numbers, but I know they were PATA drives. So I would say they have improved upon their products over time. But maybe I'm wrong? Maybe I was just unfortunate with their older drives and just got bad drives, at the time. Or maybe, only time will tell.

But I feel like the consumer can no longer obtain a good drive as of today. SSDs still seem to be, however incredibly fast, in a state of prematurity as far as long term dependance goes. And they're so expensive... not trying to complain... seems that, I guess, mechanical hard drives have reached their limit in how far they can be pushed and still remain alright in the long term. All aside, hopefully the OP was able to get at least some of the data originally in question back.

[Keatah]

Re: WD Caviar Green HDD failed. Any way to recover files?

I have an old 10Meg Xebec drive, from the Apple II days of the 70's and 80's. I just powered it up and read all the data just fine after 33 years of it sitting around. No stiction or anything. It made all same banging noises and squeaks as when it was new back in the day! Very nice. I didn't refresh the data, with the intent of checking it again much later.

I am also running a long term test on a WD Caviar 2200 212MB drive from 1992. And a 1TB 2.5" Elements drive from 2009-2010. So we shall see how long these hold up.

Today, when recommending backup drives, I do indeed tend to select a lower density. I recommend USB drives because of ease of use. A lot of folks won't do backups because of the time and tediousness involved in swapping CD's and DVD's. I also tell the folks the information should be refreshed and re-written from time to time as well, for the very reason you stated.

I tend to use WD drives myself. The worst kinds were the WD600 - 60GB drives I've had so many of these go bad I can't even count. I always thought the WD1200 were pretty reliable. I have some in this one PC that I repeatedly kick and bash around. There's something loose on the motherboard or something, POST locks up too often. And when it does I just kick it or hit it with a 2x4 block. All is well for a while after that. But with the amount of abuse the drives in it endured is nothing short of amazing. I had the fans on it fail and case was hot to the touch. A fire hazard in the making. I quickly checked the drive temps at over 68-70C. These are still working and I suppose I should relegate them to an aging test. I just fill up the drives with pictures and mp3s and then go do a byte-by-byte comparison later.

[Shocker]

Re: WD Caviar Green HDD failed. Any way to recover files?

Not to say hard drives can't be well built, though - I think a well built and well treated hard drive is ultimately what determines its lifespan, more than what company it's from or its specs (you could argue your 'run of fortune' is also partakes that, but even then...). Still... after learning about how unreliable PRT seems to be by comparison to LRT, combined with being more rickety (lighter, and firmware problems atop that... and other things), it's no wonder newer (and significantly larger) drives don't seem to hold up as well as ones of old. And I'm somewhat scared to use my more 'modern' drives after learning about PRT. Of course, older IDE/LRT drives, as far as they go... my only issue with them is how easy it is to break IDE pins and how encumbering IDE cables are. I have respect for the evolution to SATA, though when that comes in tow with PRT (I know that there are, or were, LRT SATA drives, but still)....

I actually think SATA connectors are more fragile, given how easy it is to break the connector clean off the drive.

Well, I've also read that green drives just aren't built up to the quality that blue and black drives are. Or maybe just enterprise drives? In my experience, though, Caviar Green drives are good (but I've only used a WD6400AACS in my system and a WD10EADS [2-platter version] in a MyBook). I also like what I've used of the Scorpio Blue drives (in my case, a WD5000BEVT). Very quiet and very fast. I would say the Scorpio Blue is the quietest drive I've ever used, no hyperbole. I've had more Western Digital failures with their earlier drives; I stated somewhere earlier this year, on this board, that I had a WD800JB fail hard on me. I also had a Western Digital 120GB, 40GB, 30GB, and 8GB fail hard on me too, though I can't remember the exact model numbers, but I know they were PATA drives. So I would say they have improved upon their products over time. But maybe I'm wrong? Maybe I was just unfortunate with their older drives and just got bad drives, at the time. Or maybe, only time will tell.

I don't know. But I have 7 (IIRC) WD800JDs and all appear to be in working order. They are not fast, though. 14.5ms seek time - maybe they were the new U5s (at the time).

But I feel like the consumer can no longer obtain a good drive as of today. SSDs still seem to be, however incredibly fast, in a state of prematurity as far as long term dependance goes. And they're so expensive... not trying to complain... seems that, I guess, mechanical hard drives have reached their limit in how far they can be pushed and still remain alright in the long term. All aside, hopefully the OP was able to get at least some of the data originally in question back.

How unfortunate. I won't be buying ANY new hard drives soon. Of course, old drives will not be around forever, and sooner or later they will be insufficient for modern storage needs even if they work fine. So I may eventually be pressured to buy new just to meet my needs. But that will probably be a while now. I'm only using my ST31000528AS for A/V (except The Story of Stuff), which I would be hard pressed to squeeze on my old ST380011A. I just can't understand the modern Seagate, mind you. They went to a five-year warranty in 2004, then shrunk it to a regular three-year in 2009, then to two years in 2011, and now to one year. It seems to follow the quality of the drives. Now go ahead and answer this - what's the chance that an ST1000DM003 will survive a 1m drop onto the tile floor like that ST320414A did last year???

[Per Hansson]

Re: WD Caviar Green HDD failed. Any way to recover files?

Do we have any papers that confirm that PMR drives are less reliable than the LMR?
I wont stand on any side and I'll be first to say that I have seen several PMR drives fail, but even so I have seen more failed LMR drives but that may just be because I've seen more of those drives in total...

This thread has some good info on HDD recovery aswell:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=14456

[Wester547]

Re: WD Caviar Green HDD failed. Any way to recover files?

I actually think SATA connectors are more fragile, given how easy it is to break the connector clean off the drive.

The connectors themselves may be more fragile. But what I made reference to was the PCB itself, the IDE pins on the PCB itself - those aren't anywhere near as easy or reliant to work with as SATA connections are and break far easier. Same goes for optical drives.

I don't know. But I have 7 (IIRC) WD800JDs and all appear to be in working order. They are not fast, though. 14.5ms seek time - maybe they were the new U5s (at the time).

Mine was a JB, not a JD. Not sure what difference that makes, though. :P As for seek time (or random access, whatever you want to deem it), 14.5ms isn't bad to me at all. I don't see drives push anything below 15.0ms often, and I'd be fine with even 19.0ms. I honestly don't notice the difference and if AAM saves power and noise I'm all for it.

How unfortunate. I won't be buying ANY new hard drives soon. Of course, old drives will not be around forever, and sooner or later they will be insufficient for modern storage needs even if they work fine. So I may eventually be pressured to buy new just to meet my needs. But that will probably be a while now. I'm only using my ST31000528AS for A/V (except The Story of Stuff), which I would be hard pressed to squeeze on my old ST380011A. I just can't understand the modern Seagate, mind you. They went to a five-year warranty in 2004, then shrunk it to a regular three-year in 2009, then to two years in 2011, and now to one year. It seems to follow the quality of the drives. Now go ahead and answer this - what's the chance that an ST1000DM003 will survive a 1m drop onto the tile floor like that ST320414A did last year???

I dunno. I don't think it's ever a good idea to let a hard drive become one befallen to any sort of shock, period. Not arguing that older drives weren't heavier and more shock resistant. As for the 'modern' Seagate, I don't think they're 'Seagate' anymore. It's no accident they turned to tripe from henceforth once they acquired Matrix in 2006. But even then, the first PMR drives from Seagate (the 3.5" ones, anyway) were the 7200.10 series, and I think those drives were from Seagate, not Maxtorgate...

That's not to say all Maxtors were garbage, either - I had a Maxtor Personal Storage 3100 external drive work without a hitch for 4 years (there was 20GB left on it at the end of its tenure, and it was formatted as a FAT32 drive with 93GB of disk space). I only was unable to use it after that because the AC adapter decided it was time for sparks to fly whilst plugged in (probably my fault - I was a bit too rough with it and should have replaced it sooner), and my father recycled the drive in question before I could try another (compatible) adapter with it. But as far as Seagate's time with Maxtor goes, if their initial firmware issues weren't enough to beleaguer then the sheer discrepancy in long term quality was nothing short of staggering.

That's why the warranty decreased. They know their drives aren't built to last so the warranty is just another way to put that on public display. When they say 5 year warranty, though, I've always wondered if they meant 20,000 hours of use (5 years of use, roughly, for people who don't run their computer 24/7) or 43,800 hours of use (literal 24/7 use for 5 years)?

As for PMR drives, my only problem with them is their eventual inability to retain data. That too is no accident, and augmented storage (making the 'space' to record bits of data and sustain charges on the platters smaller and thus harder) only exacerbates this. Forgive my ignorance, but how could one perform data recovery on a PMR drive? Not to say the link isn't useful or informative, everything on this forum is to me as I've yet to see a forum more informative about how to repair hardware and all the innards of them, and I'm not saying that to kiss up to anyone. But once a PMR drive goes the charges themselves literally go bye-bye, that which is data, ultimately. For that same reason, I don't see how data recovery could work with SSDs. They are not bistable and I've read that in short, the electrons will want to inevitably 'tunnel' out sooner than later.

But this all boils down to pushing magnetic media too far (sort of like how they push electrolyte too far in capacitors). I think they should have stopped with mechanical HDDs at 320GBs/LTR/2 platters/4 heads/SATA 300MB/s myself. I don't think SSDs, at least not without some considerable improvement, are a pathway forward either, as using something close to RAM isn't going to solve the long term problem of data storage that magnetic media at least made doable for a length of time (though you could contest that the only doable form of storage is a solidified backup strategy). RAM is supposed to be temporary memory, after all...

I don't think Caviar Green drives are bad if you put aside PMR. Oh, and if you disable head parking and spin-down, and if you treat it well and don't buy one too large (I wouldn't order one online, either, due to the furthered shock they'd be subject to). I think the same applies for 2.5" Scorpio Blue drives. That said, all drives are bounded to eventual failure. My gripe arises when that failure comes with too little use and with every drive used.

[ncovert]

Re: WD Caviar Green HDD failed. Any way to recover files?

I know. Take another HDD and swap the platters
LOL JK

[Phaihn]

Re: WD Caviar Green HDD failed. Any way to recover files?

i still have 2 western digital hard drives in my computer that i got in 2009 and they still work good just the hours powered on is getting up there and starting to think its almost time to be replacing them

[Scenic]

Re: WD Caviar Green HDD failed. Any way to recover files?

^ As long as the "Load Cycle Count" SMART value isn't a lot higher than "Power Cycle Count", they should be fine.

I especially keep an eye on the "Load Cycle Count" value on WD Caviar Green drives, as that seems to be what kills them (parking the heads ridiculously often)