WD device fault during level 2

[Dale Jacobs]

I'm hoping to recover data from a WD 5TB My Passport HDD which was bumped pretty hard (cats). It's an external USB drive which is internally hardwired for USB, so I can't remove it from the case and put it inside the computer using SATA, for example. I'm trying to use SpinRite to recover large video files which are tangled in a fairly hefty number of bad sectors, but I can't make it through the scans. The drive keeps reporting a Device Fault and says the drive has taken itself offline. The drive has about 2TB of data, and about half of that has been accessible via normal Windows copy commands.

Maybe related to this, the drive is from 2022 but doesn't report any SMART data. I know WD has management software which can be used with this drive, but I don't want to install anything now which could further corrupt the drive, unless that is needed for SpinRite. But I'm surprised at the lack of SMART data and asking if this is in any way related to why the drive is taking itself offline during the scans.

A final question is if I could find a bitwise copy utility to copy the drive's contents to a new internal HDD and try to do file recovery that way. It feels like this isn't possible, but I can get Windows to read a lot of data off the drive without error, and no click of death. My issue is that the files are so large that one bad sector in the middle of the file means Windows won't finish reading the file. I'm fine with blips here and there, they can be edited out of a recovered file.

Thanks,
Dale

 

[ColbyBouma]

HDD which was bumped pretty hard (cats)

That's going to be physical damage, which SpinRite can't fix.

doesn't report any SMART data

SpinRite doesn't know how to read SMART data from BIOS (USB) drives. You might be able to get SMART data from a Windows tool like CrystalDiskInfo or smartmontools.

A final question is if I could find a bitwise copy utility to copy the drive's contents to a new internal HDD and try to do file recovery that way.

Maybe Clonezilla/Rescuezilla in rescue mode and TestDisk/PhotoRec? Those tools are available in Parted Magic.

 

[PHolder]

It's an external USB drive which is internally hardwired for USB, so I can't remove it from the case and put it inside the computer using SATA, for example.

Have you actually looked inside the USB case? I guess anything is possible, but that would be a very strange HDD design. Usually they just make drives in bulk and sell some loose and some they install in an external case that they sell at a higher price.

 

[miquelfire]

I have seen drives put in those external cases with a special PCB that doesn't have the standard SATA ports. I think some companies found it was better to do that if they were going to sell the external drives cheaper than what that drive would cost as a normal internal drive. It's been a while since I looked into this, but I believe that when they do this, if the case has a PCB itself, it's for the LED light and nothing else. Most likely, if they went this route, the case is nothing more than a protective shell.

 

[PHolder]

Most likely, if they went this route, the case is nothing more than a protective shell.

Interesting, I've never encountered this, but it's been a long time since I used a spinning media USB device. I still don't think the extra engineering would pay off, but heck if I know how these companies run their businesses.

 

[miquelfire]

There was a time when you could buy an internal drive for let's say $200, but for some reason, the external drive, which was nothing more than the $200 internal drive tossed into a case, was sold for $180. At some point, people wise up to this and started shucking drives. The first method they use to stop this, they converted a pin on a connector (I think it was the data connector, but could have been the power connector) so that if it was used, it would lock out the drive. Eventually, someone found out you can just put a piece of electrical tape on that pin, and the drive worked like normal, hence the whole custom PCB thing.

My guess is, for whatever reason, they were willing to take a bit of a loss on the external drive, so long as the standalone drives sold well. But skulking had them sell more of the external drives and almost no internal drives, so they took action to stop shucking, which lead to the custom PCB that could only be used in the case it was to be in. The only USB storage I have are those small flash sticks you use for the purpose of running SpinRite, OS installers on a machine with nothing, and other tools like MemTest86

 

[Setlist]

Have you actually looked inside the USB case? I guess anything is possible, but that would be a very strange HDD design. Usually they just make drives in bulk and sell some loose and some they install in an external case that they sell at a higher price.

I have the same issue. The Western Digital "My Passport" Devices have a propitiatory connection that has the USB connected directly to the hard drive. There is sata port inside the case.