Repair or replace the partition table?

A few random thoughts

3. I just had a friend with a similar situation. We took the case off and the disk inside was perfect. The problem was with the enclosure electronics. No forensics software needed….just a new enclosure.

Good luck.

Ditto on this… I've seen several WD drives with disk enclosure problems, I replaced the enclosure and it was fine

Ok so I guess the question changes to how do I verify and or test to ensure the partition table is still good and the enclosure is the problem?

I found this article on getting into the enclosure dont want to unless I have to..
http//www.carltonbale.com/2008/01/western-digital-my-book-opening-the-case-removing-the-drive/

Thanks again

Well the Gparted disk I was using with the TestDisk utility on it is not going to work it seems who ever made the Gparted disc included a screen saver, when the screen saver kicks in it turns off the monitor, to wake up the monitor you have to move the mouse, after you move the mouse and it wakes up the mouse starts going stupid opening and closing programs including the running TestDisk program, shame people are SO STUPID! I guess they figured I am not smart enough to turn off a monitor as I walk away, no real need for this feature since I wont be using the program because of the power saving feature they included. Another exercise in confusion…

Any other ideas I can try to verify the partition table is the problem?

Thanks

Rooky,

I feel for you dude! Its very frustrating to have to deal with a problem such as this without access to case tools that could fix this problem in a matter of minutes. I can only sugest that you brush up on your hex-editing skills and locate the volume boot record backup on your disk and restore it manually using a disk editing tool to sector 63 of your disk. I cant give you any guanrantee that the backup exists or that restoring it will work but it most cases in the hands of an experienced user this method will do the job. Do a google on fixboot and this may help you also.
What kind of files are you trying to recover? An application on the Helix live forensics disk called Foremost is a very good tool for file recovery at no cost and it is well worth spending time becoming familiar with it. As a last resort I have found that booting your pc to a Helix disc and mounting memory cards with problems that you are experiencing has helped! I have no idea why but trust me it has fixed the problem on more that one occasion and my friends have been well pleased!

Pm me if you wish

Regards
Ned

Ok so I guess the question changes to how do I verify and or test to ensure the partition table is still good and the enclosure is the problem?

I can't think of any way you can easily tell whether the problem is the electronics in the enclosure or if its the partition table/Master Boot Record, Volume boot record, etc.

To me, it would be worth it to rip off the case. (You can always buy a new cheap enclosure to replace it.) Then you can test the disk to determine what is wrong. You could attach it as a second internal disk, or use a new external enclosure to try to gain access to the contents. If the MBR, partition table or VBR was the culprit, then I'd either try to "fix" them or I'd data carve everything of value off the drive. But….it requires tools and knowledge.

Do you have access to Winhex? EnCase? Do you have any experience with data recovery?

You can see the drive in Device Manager, OK, but can you see it in Disk Management?

If yes, try, from your normal NT/2K/XP/2003/Vista to use Beeblebrox
http//students.cs.byu.edu/~codyb/

Without the external hard disk connected, and then with it connected.

If a Physicaldrive is added to the top left drop down list, you can access the drive allright directly, then TESTDISK (again from "normal" windows) can be used, as well as hdhacker to save the MBR.

Usage of Hiren's, that contains BTW a bagful of WAREZ release, is besides generally NOT recommended, pretty much unuseful in this case as it is DOS based and lacks proper support for USB connectivity.

jaclaz

Hello, I am not sure where to put this so I will ask here.

Hopefully their is a easy answer to my problem.

I have a Western Digital 1TB Mybook hard drive, it connects to the computer by USB, I can see it connect to the computer when plugged in using Device Manager but cant see the drive in Explore, I called the WD tech guys and they say the partition table is gone and to send the drive back to them for replacement, I assume I can repair or replace the partition table and recover my data?

I have been playing with Hiren's BootCD http//www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd but the problem I am having is seeing the drive when trying to run some of the programs, I assume they cant see a USB drive?

Suggestions for repair or recovery?

Sorry if I put this in the wrong place.

Thanks in advance.

You can use partition recovery software to recover your data. This software provides complete data recovery. It is very easy to use. This is non destructive and read-only utility helps you to recover your data lost due to accidental format, virus problems, software malfunction, file or directory deletion, unexpected shutdown, or even sabotage. Download the free demo version of the software from the site
http//www.stellarinfo.com/partition-recovery.htm
After seeing the preview of your lost data download the full version to complete your recovery.

Hi and thanks for all your help.

Update I opened the WD my book case and put the 1TB drive in my computer, it did not work, I put another 160 gig drive into the WD enclosure and it worked perfectly so I did a RMA on the WD web site they gave me a RMA number so I assembled the WD my book and shipped it back, I got a email from them yesterday stating my replacement drive is on its way back to me.

I will let you know what I get I assume it will be a refurbished 1TB My Book.