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

[Cheesysocks]

Hi everyone.

As per the title, I have a WD Green 1tb that has failed. It was my main C drive and my old emails and stuff are all on there along with family pictures and who knows what else. I've rebuilt the PC on an older 250gb drive so I'm up and running.

I would like to recover it if possible, but I can't afford to go to specialist firms. The drive is dated July 2011 so I know it's in warranty but that doesn't help with recovery.

I have tried EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard Professional, 5.5.1. It sees the drive, and tries to recover, but just sits there with about 1% of the bar showing. I left it for 24 hours but no change.

If it's the heads buggered, then I assume no software can read it. Are there any tricks that can help? I've heard of freezing it. I don't know how that's supposed to help but if it does I'l try it.

Can anyone advise please? Thank you.

[Uranium-235]

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

I've had success with freezing, it all depends on HOW the drive died.

I've used other software to scan for recoverable files, once is finds them, I save the recovery file. by this time, the drive has reheated, I freeze it again, wait, load the recovery file and start recovering what I can. Might not work for you

edit: oh yeah and seriously, back shit up, or raid 1

[mariushm]

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

If the drive is visible in Windows, then freezing it is the last thing you want to do.

Freezing should only be performed when the platters or disk heads are stuck and you don't even hear the disk spinning. And as a last measure.

I've had great success with EasyRecovery Professional - when I found it a few years ago it was made by Ontrack but now I think the company got sold to some other company.
It's expensive but should be some pirated versions around (not condoning piracy but paying $499 for a one time use...) and keep it mind it may not work under Vista/Windows 7.

[selldoor]

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

Hi if windows sees the disk you could try this
http://www.pandorarecovery.com/

I have used it to recover pictures from corrupted SD cards, Data from disks with loads of file errors and stuff from disks formatted in error.
Its free so got to be worth try

Failing that as a last (free) resort a hard knock while its running might kick it into action long enough to recover stuff

Good luck

[kc8adu]

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

never do that!
its already in trouble.why risk adding a busted head to the mix?

Failing that as a last (free) resort a hard knock while its running might kick it into action long enough to recover stuff

Good luck

[kc8adu]

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

post the smart data.this may tell us what happened.
dont freeze.thwack bang,or otherwise mistreat it as you will only make things worse.

[shovenose]

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

Will Western Digital help you out? Have you tried contacting them?
It's a pretty new drive so maybe they will help recover or something...

[selldoor]

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

never do that!
its already in trouble.why risk adding a busted head to the mix?

Ok - i did say as a last resort?? what is your last resort suggestion?

[dmill89]

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

Ok - i did say as a last resort?? what is your last resort suggestion?

Depending on how badly you need the data you can get a working model of the same drive, remove the discs from the dead one, and put them in the working one and recover the data. This is only temporary since unless you have a clean room the long-term reliability of the repaired drive will be compromised due to contaminates (dust) on the discs but it should last long enough to recover the data as long as there is not severe physical damage to the discs themselves. You must be extremely careful when undertaking this process or you risk further damaging the data. That being said if the data is valuable enough to go to this extreme it is probably worth sending it off to a data recovery company and letting them deal with this hassle. For a regular desktop drive with nothing exceptionally valuable on it I probably wouldn't attempt this, but a business drive with valuable data could certainly be a candidate (shame on any business who does not back up such data), but again most business would probably prefer a data recovery company rather than risk damaging the data through such a DIY technique.

[yyonline]

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

Assuming the bios will see the drive, and it sounds like it does, I've had the best luck using GNU ddrescue. It's pretty unique in its implementation in that it reads until it finds and error, skips ahead and reads backwards, etc. Basically, it tries to get as much of the good data as possible, as quickly as possible. You can direct the output of ddrescue to an image file, which you can then mount. Of course, this assumes you have good basic understanding of Linux. I haven't seen a comparable tool for Windows.

[Toasty]

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

HDD Regenerator

Ignores file system. Non-destructive.

Bootable CD ISO available. Have CD image burning software?

Please elaborate on failure. Noise? Can't boot? Error messages?

Recent Malware attacks have done a "Fake HDD", which overwrites the MBR and returns a NO OS FOUND error, which is completely fake/false.

Toast

[b700029]

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

Try an MHDD scan: http://hddguru.com/software/2005.10.02-MHDD/

Depending on how badly you need the data you can get a working model of the same drive, remove the discs from the dead one, and put them in the working one and recover the data. This is only temporary since unless you have a clean room the long-term reliability of the repaired drive will be compromised due to contaminates (dust) on the discs but it should last long enough to recover the data as long as there is not severe physical damage to the discs themselves. You must be extremely careful when undertaking this process or you risk further damaging the data.

The platters are precision-mounted at the factory, removing and replacing them will lead to losing all the data because you'll never be able to get the run-out low enough for the heads to track properly. There are over 100,000 tracks per inch in a modern HDD - can you get the platters on there with < 0.00001" accuracy? A head swap would have a much better chance of succeeding, and that's relatively speaking, because even that has a huge failure rate if you're not highly experienced and have the right environment/tools.

[dmill89]

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

Try an MHDD scan: http://hddguru.com/software/2005.10.02-MHDD/

The platters are precision-mounted at the factory, removing and replacing them will lead to losing all the data because you'll never be able to get the run-out low enough for the heads to track properly. There are over 100,000 tracks per inch in a modern HDD - can you get the platters on there with < 0.00001" accuracy? A head swap would have a much better chance of succeeding, and that's relatively speaking, because even that has a huge failure rate if you're not highly experienced and have the right environment/tools.

Good to know. I've never tried this method on a newer drive, only old <20gb drives and that was more of an experiment than an actual data recovery attempt. I guess the density on a modern 1TB HDD would make the alignment precision a much larger factor.

[kc8adu]

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

yes these new drives are very fussy when swapping headstacks.choice of donors critical.
i have many years experience doing this.
oh and last resort is to put it away and stop screwing around with it.the drive will not worsten on the shelf.but you could screw it up for good if you are not careful.

[japlytic]

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

The platters are precision-mounted at the factory, removing and replacing them will lead to losing all the data because you'll never be able to get the run-out low enough for the heads to track properly. There are over 100,000 tracks per inch in a modern HDD - can you get the platters on there with < 0.00001" accuracy? A head swap would have a much better chance of succeeding, and that's relatively speaking, because even that has a huge failure rate if you're not highly experienced and have the right environment/tools.

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.

[selldoor]

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

Hi everyone.

As per the title, I have a WD Green 1tb that has failed. It was my main C drive and my old emails and stuff are all on there along with family pictures and who knows what else. I've rebuilt the PC on an older 250gb drive so I'm up and running.

I would like to recover it if possible, but I can't afford to go to specialist firms. The drive is dated July 2011 so I know it's in warranty but that doesn't help with recovery.

I have tried EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard Professional, 5.5.1. It sees the drive, and tries to recover, but just sits there with about 1% of the bar showing. I left it for 24 hours but no change.

If it's the heads buggered, then I assume no software can read it. Are there any tricks that can help? I've heard of freezing it. I don't know how that's supposed to help but if it does I'l try it.

Can anyone advise please? Thank you.

Hi are you reading any of this? Various members have suggested different software and tactics and have asked for more info on what the failure is and if you know how it occured but you have not responded. Even knowing if it is spinning or not may help.

I think we can rule out replacing the platters as an option for 99.9% of people.
If we rule out Freezing Knocking and leaving it on a shelf? what are your options.

Software: Whilst you have given up on EASEUS it may be worth contacting them if you are using a bone fide copy (or even if its a bootleg) just to ask How long it should take. I have looked on their site and someone has said

''One suggestion though. Your manual should give an indication of how long it takes the program to run. To search a 120GB USB drive, it took about 40 hours to do the initial file search and then an additional 140 hours +/- to do the data recovery. I am NOT complaining about how long it took the program to run but there was a point in the process when I wondered if it was running properly. Had there been an indication that data recovery is a long process in the instructions, I would not have had any concerns at all.''
I know usb is going to be much slower but you may not have waited long enough. Care though if you are using a demo it seems you could wait days? then only actually recover 1gb.

How much data was on the disk is your 250gb going to be big enough for the recovery file?

Warranty: As shovenose suggested got to be worth asking if they can do anything for you.
Put it down to experience (Resolve to Back Up essential files ) and get a new shiny drive.

Family Photos: any other family got copies. Can recent ones be recovered from the camera memory cards? sometimes possible even if formatted I believe

[b700029]

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.

Modern drives use embedded servo so the radial alignment between platters is not important - each head will seek to the right place by itself; even thermal expansion is enough to move the tracks several places over. So if the heads are not damaged during the swap and are the same type, they will find the tracks automatically and should work well enough to recover the data. Why swapping the platters is much more difficult is due to the run-out problem I mentioned above. But as long as the tracks remain round enough the heads will be able ot stay on them.

[severach]

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

http://myharddrivedied.com/

You need to watch the videos to get an idea of what you can try with the skills you have.

[kc8adu]

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

if the data means little to you just keep messing with it blindly and hose it.
smart data(raw) will help determine what IF ANYTHING is wrong with it.

[Cheesysocks]

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

Good evening one and all.

Apologies for the delay in responding as I had lost the shortcut I made to this site / thread! Oops. Anyway, I got back here eventually.

Many thanks to all of you for the many and varied responses you have given. I think my ultimate question was: being as the software wouldn't recover anything, is it most likely that the problem is hardware as oposed to just a damaged piece of software, like the boot sector?

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.

The chances of finding another identical drive to swap the platters with is remote I should think. I suppose I could advertise for one somewhere. It would be interesting to play with it and see.

Selldoor, I see you have some interesting questions. Thanks. Regarding the duration of the software run, I stopped after a day and a bit as it wasn't increasing it's counter at all. I was worried that if I just left it that it would eventually grind away the platters and leave no options. Maybe I'll put it back in over the weekend and try again.

I have a nice new external 2tb drive now and I still have another 1tb working well. And I'm looking at which company to use for offsite backups. Bluecloud looks good.

Again, thanks for all the suggestions. I'll look at myharddrivedied.com, regenerator and other suggestions over the weekend.

Mike. UK.