Drive Will Not Mount on Linux, Windows Can't See it.

abrogard

New member
I've had this Western Digital Blue 256MB Cache 2T since January and last week it died. It was in a Win10 box as the system disk and suddenly I couldn't even boot up.

I put it on a Linux Mint system and it could see it alright but said that it was unmountable.

Took it back to another Windows system and hung it off it as a data drive but it couldn't be seen.

Tried to boot off Kyhi and look at it and I couldn't even boot.

Took it back to the shop and they kept it week without even looking at it and then when I went in looked at it that afternoon and gave it back saying they could do nothing - except give me a replacement. But they couldn't fix it and they can't get data off it.

It's not life or death but I do have a couple of thousands pics on it I'd like to keep and masses of downloaded pdf's.

Can anyone help with that, show me the way?
 

Jared

Administrator
Staff member
Maybe we can start with an actual model of the drive. I have no clue what you mean by a
abrogard":1bbssidf said:
[post]16300[/post] Blue ORPM 256MB Cache 2T

I'd assume some sort of Western Digital Blue drive???
 

abrogard

New member
True? That's the label they chose to identify it with when they sold it to me - that's from the receipt, I thought it would be definitive. I've got no idea what the orpm means but the rest seems fairly clear to me and I figured professionals would have no problems.

It's a western digital blue drive. internal. 3.5 inch I guess. The drive itself has model number WD20EZAZ - 00GGJBO and SATA 6Gb/s and HA500.
 

Jared

Administrator
Staff member
abrogard":1div6cgo said:
[post]16305[/post] I thought it would be definitive.
It absolutely wasn't

abrogard":1div6cgo said:
[post]16305[/post] I figured professionals would have no problems.
Having nothing more than a store clerk's mistyped lame description of an item is a problem for professionals to translate.

abrogard":1div6cgo said:
[post]16305[/post] I've got no idea what the orpm means
Because it's complete gibberish and means absolutely nothing

abrogard":1div6cgo said:
[post]16305[/post] WD20EZAZ - 00GGJBO
Now we are getting somewhere. This is a very new model of WD Blue drive. One which I believe has encrypted firmware and a locked out PCB, though I'm not 100% sure of the family yet as that specific submodel hasn't showed up in my area.

There's a good chance that what you are experiencing is a firmware malfunction common to nearly all WD drives. Or possibly you have a weak/failed read/write head. If the heads were badly failed though it'd probably be audibly clicking when powered on though.

However, in any event DIY is probably out of the question. You'd need a specially sourced unlocked PCB and a tool that can manipulate functions in the drive's firmware at the very least. A professional lab can most likely recover all the data, but I don't think it's got any chance at DIY.
 

maximus

Member
Jared":1g6ikfa8 said:
[post]16307[/post] There's a good chance that what you are experiencing is a firmware malfunction common to nearly all WD drives. Or possibly you have a weak/failed read/write head. If the heads were badly failed though it'd probably be audibly clicking when powered on though.
Are you referring to the "slow responding" firmware issue, or something else like a translator issue? If it just the slow responding issue, there is a DIY possibility to get data off the drive for a cheap price ($25).

EDIT:
I forgot to say that is only if the OP is not willing to pay for professional data recovery, which is the impression I got.
 

Jared

Administrator
Staff member
maximus":dgobft77 said:
Jared":dgobft77 said:
[post]16307[/post] There's a good chance that what you are experiencing is a firmware malfunction common to nearly all WD drives. Or possibly you have a weak/failed read/write head. If the heads were badly failed though it'd probably be audibly clicking when powered on though.
Are you referring to the "slow responding" firmware issue, or something else like a translator issue? If it just the slow responding issue, there is a DIY possibility to get data off the drive for a cheap price ($25).

EDIT:
I forgot to say that is only if the OP is not willing to pay for professional data recovery, which is the impression I got.
Not if it has a locked PCB which I strongly suspect this model does.

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk
 

maximus

Member
Jared":3hqvnllt said:
[post]16310[/post] Not if it has a locked PCB which I strongly suspect this model does.
I am not talking about fixing the slow responding issue. I am talking about possible data recovery while still dealing with the slow responding issue. If the drive reads okay but has to wait for every read, with the right software tools there are tricks to get data off of it without taking an eternity, as long as it isn't a large amount of data. A few thousand pictures could be a few GB to a few 10s of GB, which could possibly be done in a reasonable amount of time.
 

abrogard

New member
I have it viewable on a Mint system and I was able to do a SMART test and it passed that OK.
Can I interrogate the drive somehow and ascertain if the pcb is locked as you say?
There's a suggestion that the whole thing has something to do with Windows and hibernation. If you're professionals in this field have you heard of problems of that nature? Perhaps caused by a power out during the hibernation process.
 

maximus

Member
Before I go any farther with possible DIY options, I would like confirmation from the OP that professional data recovery is not an option on the table.

@abrogard, is the data worth spending a few hundred dollars or more for recovery? Because once you go down the DIY road without success, it could make professional recovery more expensive or even impossible. I need to know for sure that you are not willing to go the professional route before I suggest an alternative DIY method.
 

abrogard

New member
Hi... no it is not.

It's a few thousand non-commercial photograph and a few hundreds downloaded pdf's that I guess I'll accumulate again over time...

And I've just come here from your post on hddguru where you recognised this problem/this poster as being identical. You say you'll only respond on one venue. That's fair enough. It's nice you respond at all.

So I'll choose the other forum: hddguru if that's okay with you?

:)
 
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