External HDD showing full but it is impossible

jumanji said:

I have to intervene.

As I said in an earlier post your Western Digital Passport external drive is hardware encrypted. The hardware encryption chip as well as the decryption key is in the Interface electronics inside the enclosure. The hardware chips encrypts the data and writes the encrypted data into the HDD. If the Interface card inside fails - which I presume is in your case - there is absolutely no way to get your data back since the decrypt key is also in the interface card.

Even if the HDD inside is by itself good any data recovery software can get you only the encrypted data which will be absolutely useless for you.

The only people who can decrypt and recover your data is the Western Digital patronised Data Recovery agencies to whom only WD has made available the decryption key.

So don't waste your time and money buying a data recovery software.

Thank you for this post - I stand thoroughly corrected. Reading up on the subject I will now refrain from purchasing one. I found this site that had some interesting information though.. CarltonBale.com » Western Digital MyBook Drive Lock Encryption ? Failure and Recovery

Major problem with these drives is also the fact that when integrated sata drive (usually low quality like wd green) starts developing bad sectors, the usb bridge doesn’t handle it well. It simply freezes. So you can not get good data because the drive freezes after trying to access data on bad sector area. I can confirm that you can remove the drive from usb/encryption bridge, connect it directly to sata on mainboard (it handles bad sectors much easier), sector clone it to a new/good drives using a tool like ddrescue, connect the new drive back to usb/encryption bridge and your data is accessible. You will loose the bad sector data but you could at least access all other data/disk area. Well, if your file system metadata hasn’t been on bad sectors areas. If, then you should use some recovery programs afterwards.

I have read CottonBale's post many times and If I remember correct have even mentioned it in many of my posts here before.

Now there are two assumptions in what he says.

1. The interface electronics inside is Ok. It is only the HDD that has bad sectors and it is unable to read..

2. The HDD inside is a conventional HDD with SATA connectors and the interface electronics is a separate block. So you can take the HDD out and connect it as a SATA drive in another computer.

Now the OP had run Datalifeguard Diagnostics. If the interface Electronics is OK it should be able to get the drive's capacity and show its correct capacity. It should also run the extended test and try sector by sector to find any bad sectors and repair it if possible. It did not happen. Though the OP is yet to confirm, I believe the extended Test did not run taking hours to complete. It finished off in a jiffy within seconds because it could read only 0 sectors. So point No. 1 is off from my radar.

Many of the Western digital external drives now sport an integrated interface card. The drive has no SATA connectors. It connects directly to the electronics. You cannot take out the drive and connect it to another computer.

Considering all these things, If the OP is intent on Data Recovery he should give off the whole unit to those WD authorised recovery agents. Free consultation. The OP can get a quote from them.CKWD had given the link.

If he has no such intentions, then he can break the unit and try his luck in whatever way he wants, if he finds that he has a conventional HDD inside.

For the time being I have just stopped him from buying any data recovery software. Freeware can do it for most part. ddrescue can clone the drive.

You're an impressive man, Jumanji. No doubt, if sending this unit away is affordable or even better - under some warranty, why not do exactly that! This specific model has turned out to be a lesson compared to what I thought I already knew about.

Jumanji, when I ran WD DatalifeGuard Diagnostics, I did the quick scan only. It took over 20 minutes to give a result. I decided against an extended scan because the program warned it would take several hours for larger drives. Going by my previous experience with Partition Recovery's quick scan, which we abandoned after waiting several days, I felt a few hours would have been an understatement.

The WD drive, which is still connected to my other PC, is showing in Disk Management as drive F: in RAW format, with 9048 GB available and healthy. Is that good news or not? WD's Unlock device is shown as drive E: (a screenshot has been taken, if required). I have tried to eject the drive but it won't allow it so I am going to shut down the PC.

I'm afraid to use a professional retrieval service for 2 reasons:
1. the cost is supposed to be very high, and
2. some of my data is of a sensitive nature.

After unplugging and re-connecting the drive, WD Unlocker is still working correctly.

I am using the "WD Drive Unlock utility" however, the first time I used it on this particular PC (my wife's machine), I checked the option to autologin so I only needed to enter the password the first time.

So, step 1, plugin the drive via USB. The WD Drive Unlock utility appears in Windows Explorer (see screenshot 1).

Step 2, launch the WD Drive unlock utility and up pops the WD Drive Unlock window showing the drive is now unlocked (see screenshot 2).

Step 3, open Drive Manager to see the current state of the drive in RAW format. Note the drive is shown as being in a healthy state (sain). I should add that it takes at least 2 hours before Drive Manager will finally display anything. This is because the WD drive in RAW format is causing real trouble for readability (see screenshot 3).