I've recently procured a WD Passport 1TB USB3.0 disk that needs some data recovery. I'm fairly certain it's a hardware related issue, either the PCB, or the read/write heads. TL;DR – Can anyone recommend a reputable, reliable, and trustworthy Australian data recovery service, that has been successful for you or someone you know? (Please, no lectures on backing up data, which has already been given to the owner of said data, incidentally not me) Background information follows; * The end-user reported that the drive started making some "unusual" sounds, and the filesystem wasn't readable. * Advised the owner to safely eject the device and not power it up again. * Connected it to my linux machine with the intent of creating a 'ddrescue' image to work with. * It detected the USB device, and I could hear it spinning up, with a (somewhat louder than usual) head seeking sound. * But wouldn't mount, as it could only intermittently read block data, a few I/O errors, and/or not detect a block device. * Though I was eventually able to recover the partition table with 'dd' * When I next powered up the device to perform a ddrescue, the drive started with the "clicking of death" along with some beeping from the PCB, then eventually goes offline. * Since then, haven't been game enough to power it on, or try any of the more drastic measures such as freezing or "accoustic maintenance", in fear of making professional recovery more difficult. * So short of replacing the PCB myself, or performing surgical recovery/transplant, I've done all I can. I'm hoping someone could recommend a reliable and trustworthy recovery professional, that I can engage to perform the work on my behalf. -- Joel Shea <jwshea@gmail.com>
Last I checked pro data recovery was hideously expensive. You may very well have the cash for this, however having performed pcb replacements a number of times now I can tell you its really not very hard, and I dare say not too risky to the data also. It is also reasonably cheap for a pcb. Having said this, if you're really not confident doing so its probably best not to potentially mess up the drive more, although even if you wrecked the PDB the guts of the drive shouldn't be affected. D Joel W Shea <jwshea@gmail.com> wrote:
I've recently procured a WD Passport 1TB USB3.0 disk that needs some data recovery. I'm fairly certain it's a hardware related issue, either the PCB, or the read/write heads.
TL;DR – Can anyone recommend a reputable, reliable, and trustworthy Australian data recovery service, that has been successful for you or someone you know?
(Please, no lectures on backing up data, which has already been given to the owner of said data, incidentally not me)
Background information follows; * The end-user reported that the drive started making some "unusual" sounds, and the filesystem wasn't readable. * Advised the owner to safely eject the device and not power it up again. * Connected it to my linux machine with the intent of creating a 'ddrescue' image to work with. * It detected the USB device, and I could hear it spinning up, with a (somewhat louder than usual) head seeking sound. * But wouldn't mount, as it could only intermittently read block data, a few I/O errors, and/or not detect a block device. * Though I was eventually able to recover the partition table with 'dd' * When I next powered up the device to perform a ddrescue, the drive started with the "clicking of death" along with some beeping from the PCB, then eventually goes offline. * Since then, haven't been game enough to power it on, or try any of the more drastic measures such as freezing or "accoustic maintenance", in fear of making professional recovery more difficult. * So short of replacing the PCB myself, or performing surgical recovery/transplant, I've done all I can.
I'm hoping someone could recommend a reliable and trustworthy recovery professional, that I can engage to perform the work on my behalf.
-- Joel Shea <jwshea@gmail.com> _______________________________________________ luv-main mailing list luv-main@luv.asn.au http://lists.luv.asn.au/listinfo/luv-main
-- Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
On 02/05/2013 02:17 AM, Joel W Shea wrote:
I've recently procured a WD Passport 1TB USB3.0 disk that needs some data recovery. I'm fairly certain it's a hardware related issue
There are some "features" of some USB hard disks (inc some WD ones I think) that have some effect between the OS and the hardware [possibly to do with encryption]. This is WIN/OSX only stuff. (*) I've got a drive that I can't use except on Windows and when I mount or partition it on Linux it turns up garbage. I am just mentioning it in case you have a similar drive that at one time appeared full of data but now seems corrupt that is also one of these drives. Good luck P (*) And I cant get the windows software until I prove that I am not from a terrorist country because of the US's idiotic encryption export laws.
participants (3)
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Daniel Cross -
Joel W Shea -
Piers Rowan