USB Drive Failure / Data Recovery

[Th3Architect]

Hi Guys, really need some help on this one. 

 

I run a small repair shop and have been asked to recover some data from a drive (500GB WD Elements USB 3.0), the drive does not show up in Explorer and as soon as I open Disk Management I get asked to initialise it, I know this will wipe it so discard it every time, when actually in Disk management it shows in the list as Unknown, Not Initialised and there is no partition table for it it's just grey like the background.

 

Usually a lot of these external are 2.5" drives in a box so I take them apart and plug them directly in and do the recovery, this one is not standard sata its the silly USB 3.0 plug I think introduced by Samsung (correct me if im wrong there).

 

Any idea on where to go with this.

[ShadowCaptain]

Hi Guys, really need some help on this one. 

 

I run a small repair shop and have been asked to recover some data from a drive (500GB WD Elements USB 3.0), the drive does not show up in Explorer and as soon as I open Disk Management I get asked to initialise it, I know this will wipe it so discard it every time, when actually in Disk management it shows in the list as Unknown, Not Initialised and there is no partition table for it it's just grey like the background.

 

Usually a lot of these external are 2.5" drives in a box so I take them apart and plug them directly in and do the recovery, this one is not standard sata its the silly USB 3.0 plug I think introduced by Samsung (correct me if im wrong there).

 

Any idea on where to go with this.

 

I am pretty sure inside its still a Sata Drive, can you post up a photo of the internals

[Th3Architect]

I am pretty sure inside its still a Sata Drive, can you post up a photo of the internals

 

Not so sure but here ya go - 

[ShadowCaptain]

Not so sure but here ya go - 

 

wow I have never seen that before

 

Looks like there is a connector to use so you will probably need an adapter to SATA for it to work

 

however connecting it via SATA will still probably give you the same error

[Th3Architect]

wow I have never seen that before

 

Looks like there is a connector to use so you will probably need an adapter to SATA for it to work

 

however connecting it via SATA will still probably give you the same error

 

Yup thought as much not to worry I'll tell the customer to go with cloud backup and be done with it lol, thanks

[ShadowCaptain]

Yup thought as much not to worry I'll tell the customer to go with cloud backup and be done with it lol, thanks

 

always an easy solution

[TJStamp]

you don't always have to actually mount the drive within the OS to be able to recover things from it. If you try something basic like running "recuva" you may be able to pull some files off of it.