WD My Cloud Drive Access

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EddieTurner

New member
Hello! Recently, after dropping a WD MyCloud single 4TB enclosure from a very shallow height, the LED on its front panel began to blink red continuously. My research informed me that the drive would no longer function inside the enclosure, so I carefully removed it. Upon connecting the hard drive to my Win10 PC via a powered SATA to USB adapter, it was recognized as a mass storage device but then rejected. The error message informed me of a malfunction in reading it. Upon inspecting the drive, I found no evidence of an impact, nor any clicking or beeping. It spins just as smoothly and quietly as one would expect.

At this point, I learned that the NAS drives inside the MyCloud devices all have Linux partitions and that a Linux reader for Windows would be needed. So I used the popular reader from DiskInternals to no avail even after connecting the drive via internal SATA. I even tried connecting it to a laptop running Ubuntu. Still no access. I have watched several video tutorials where individuals accessed their NAS drives with ease using the tools I have used and followed their instructions. And yet I am still without access to this drive which has a large portion of my family photo archive on it. Needless to say, I'm stressing over this a bit, but not giving up.

Any info you might suggest to assist me would be hugely appreciated.

Thanks!
Eddie
 
Jared

Jared

Administrator
Staff member
The drive will at the very least have bad sectors, more likely it'll have weak/failed read/write heads. The software isn't the problem, the hardware is the problem.

You might consider trying ddrescue to clone the drive to another same/larger size HDD and then see if you can read the clone using Linux or data recovery software that supports EXT3/4 file systems. I've got a guide to using ddrescue here: how-to-clone-a-hard-drive-with-bad-sectors-using-ddrescue-t133.html

If ddrescue is unable to clone the drive, then you're definitely going to need professional service to get the data back.
 
pclab

pclab

Moderator
Have you at least checked the "health" of the HDD, for instance with WD Lifeguard Diagnostic or HDDScan for instance?
As Jared said, you probably have a problem physically with the drive and you need to image it before it fails for good.
You can also use HDDSuperclone to image it.
 
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EddieTurner

New member
I haven't done any diagnostics. I'm guessing the results will determine if I should even attempt to image the drive. Correct?
 
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EddieTurner

New member
Lifeguard requires the drive to be mounted before it can scan. I can't mount it. Can I assume this is a requirement for the image process as well?
 
LarrySabo

LarrySabo

Member
I think the first thing to do is to decide the value of the data to you. With dropped drives, best practice is to examine the read/write heads under a microscope after removing them in a cleanroom environment. If the heads are deformed/damaged or have platter lubrication-layer residue on them, that would make a head swap imperative and imaging without doing so reckless. Imaging the drive may exacerbate any media damage and make the data unrecoverable by anyone.

Many data recovery firms will assess the drive for recoverability without charge and provide a quote on what the recovery would cost. If a head swap is not required, they may even go ahead and provide a list of recoverable files to help you decide if the cost is justified. After a proper assessment, if the cost is not acceptable you will have nothing to lose by trying to recover the data yourself. Trying to recover it yourself first, making it unrecoverable and then finding out that professional recovery would not have been as expensive as you might have imagined, would be a shame.
 
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EddieTurner

New member
Near Chattanooga, TN. I already hit up one outfit - Disk Doctors in Cumming, GA. Price would be between $450 and $1800 plus a fee according the the amount of data recovered. The drive is only around 15% full.
 
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EddieTurner

New member
I just contacted Fields Data Recovery in St. Louis. Quote was reasonable but the rep I spoke to was a little too eager. Glad I checked the reviews on Yelp. Tons of horror stories with this group.
 
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