Western Digital Data Recovery

Western Digital Data Recovery

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Our experts have extensive experience recovering data from failed hard disks. With 15 years experience in the data recovery industry, we can help you through the minefield of recovering data that might otherwise be considered lost.
Western Digital Data Recovery
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The Myriad Reasons Why Western Digital Hard Drives Fail:

There are many reasons as to why your Western Digital hard drive may suddenly cease to function in the manner it normally would. Sometimes it may be simply because of general wear and tear on the device or it may be because of an outside force at work such as dropping the computer whilst in transit, spilling something into the mechanics, incorrect or outdated firmware…the list is not endless but certainly not without a far reaching limit. Indeed sometimes a device will just fail with no reason or explanation available and that is where we come in. Here at www.swanseadatarecovery.co.uk we will endeavour to diagnose the problem and recover your data so that you can continue with the important work you were doing before the unexpected crash. We might not always be able to give you an explanation as to why the drive has failed but we will most certainly be in a position to help retrieve your data in the most professional and cost effective manner possible.

Physical Western Digital Hard Drive Failings:

A physical fail occurs when a part(s) within the hard drive decide they can no longer function. This may be because of heavy duty usage, perhaps a fault in a batch of components used, or because of an extraneous force at work. We are all prone to accidents and accidents do happen around a computer. Drinks may be spilled, unforeseen knocks may occur, even just leaving a computer switched on for overly long periods of time may contribute to a hard drive’s untimely failure.

Loss Of Data Due To Accidental Formatting or Deletion:

It can happen to the best of us. Even the most experienced IT person can press the wrong button, execute the wrong command, or simply press DELETE too soon. And when this happens not only can you find yourself missing the work you tirelessly worked to produce but in some instances (if you are a business) find that your staff are not able to be as productive as they could be. The accidental loss of data, be it because of an inadvertent format or unplanned deletion, can throw things into disarray, which is where we come in. If you have mistakenly deleted files or formatted a Western Digital drive we can help you recover that data quickly and with minimal disruption to the data itself.

Power Surges And Outages And The Damage They Can Render To Your WD Hard Drive:

So there you are working happily on your next project or assignment when the lights go out. Not only does the electricity fail but in doing so it can cause your computer’s hard drive to fail too. A sudden loss of power may cause the drive’s heads and platters to spin off course or similarly a sudden surge of power can cause the printed circuit board or motherboard to burn. Also a sudden stop can render your last save useless. This is where we come into our own by being able to help you recover that last save or indeed all the data on your drive.

Software Firmware Failures that cause your WD Hard Drive not to get recognised:

Firmware is the internal program(s) that (a) make a piece of hardware work and (b) tell it how to work in conjunction with out pieces of hardware or software. And just like a program you might install from a CD or DVD these pieces of firmware can sometimes become corrupted or need updating in line with changes to the specifications of the device that operate. If a firmware program fails whilst operating a hard drive then the hard drive will become unresponsive and no matter how hard you try that drive will not allow any reading, writing or storage. Using the latest available firmware tools we can help replace the firmware or at best retrieve your data from a no longer functioning drive.

Sudden Stoppage To A WD Hard Drive If Your Computer Becomes Unstable:

A hard drive may fail if there are bad sectors on the disk. This is just like when vinyl was king a record would become scratched and would jump and you wouldn’t be able to hear your favourite track. A hard drive works in a similar way and bad sectors allow for jumping and the missing of important information such as executable files and DLL files that make software and hardware compatible. The continual freezing or rebooting of a PC, Mac or other computer may be symptomatic of a hard drive problem, which is where we come in.

Featured Article

Case Study: Recovery from a Failed Western Digital My Book Thunderbolt Duo RAID 1 Array Following a Disrupted Rebuild Process

Client Profile: User of a WD My Book Thunderbolt Duo 4TB external RAID system.
Presenting Issue: A degraded RAID 1 (mirror) array entered a failed rebuild state, stalling at 7% over 24 hours. After a forced restart, the array became entirely inaccessible, with data unavailable on both physical drives.

The Fault Analysis

The client’s experience is a classic example of a cascading failure in a hardware-controlled RAID system. The initial failure of “Drive A” triggered a complex sequence of events that ultimately compromised the entire logical volume.

  1. Underlying Media Degradation on Drive A: The initial degradation of Drive A was likely caused by unstable sectors or a firmware issue that prevented the drive from responding within the RAID controller’s timeout threshold. This prompted the controller to mark the drive as failed and initiate a rebuild onto Drive B.

  2. Catastrophic Rebuild Failure: The rebuild process stalling at 7% is highly indicative of a critical issue with the source drive (the remaining “good” Drive B). The most probable cause is that Drive B contained marginal sectors or developing read instabilities. During the intense, sequential read stress of a rebuild, these weak areas failed, causing the process to hang. The 24-hour duration to reach 7% is itself a massive red flag, pointing to severe read retries and hardware ECC recovery attempts.

  3. Metadata Corruption: The client’s action of restarting the system during a hung rebuild was catastrophic. The RAID controller’s volatile memory, which was managing the partial rebuild, was cleared. Upon reboot, the controller re-analysed the drives and found an inconsistent state: Drive A was already marked as failed, and Drive B now had a partially written, non-synchronised copy of the data and corrupted RAID metadata. With a valid, synchronised mirror pair no longer present, the controller correctly reported the entire array as failed to prevent further data corruption.

The Professional Data Recovery Laboratory Process

Recovery in this scenario requires a forensic approach that completely bypasses the WD enclosure’s faulty RAID controller to manually reconstruct a coherent data set from the two physically compromised drives.

Phase 1: Physical Drive Stabilisation and Independent Forensic Imaging

  1. Drive Extraction & Isolation: Both hard drives are physically removed from the My Book Duo enclosure. This is critical to bypass the proprietary hardware RAID controller and any potential issues with the Thunderbolt bridge board.

  2. Individual Diagnostics: Each drive is connected to our PC-3000 system with a stable, lab-grade power supply. A full diagnostic is run to assess the physical health of each drive. We expect to find:

    • Drive A: A high count of reallocated sectors, pending sectors, and potentially uncorrectable errors.

    • Drive B: Evidence of read instability and marginal sectors that caused the rebuild to fail.

  3. Sector-Level Imaging: Using our DeepSpar Disk Imager, we create full, sector-by-sector clones of both drives. The imaging process for Drive B is configured with aggressive read retry algorithms and timeout extensions to gently negotiate the unstable sectors that caused the original failure. A bad sector map is generated for each drive, providing a blueprint of the damaged areas.

Phase 2: RAID 1 Mirror Analysis and Data Synchronisation

With two complete disk images, we manually reconstruct the mirror.

  1. Block-Level Comparative Analysis: Our specialised RAID recovery software performs a block-by-block comparison of the two drive images. The goal is to identify a “golden copy” of each logical block address (LBA).

  2. Building a Coherent Virtual Image: The software is instructed to create a single, optimal image by following a rule set. For each LBA:

    • If the data from both drives is identical and passes a checksum, it is used.

    • If one drive returns a read error (from the bad sector map) but the other provides good data, the good data is used.

    • If both drives return different data (indicating a point of de-synchronisation from the failed rebuild), we use heuristic analysis—such as checking for valid file system structures—to select the most likely correct version, typically from the drive that was not the source of the initial failure (Drive B, pre-rebuild).

  3. Handling Partial Rebuild Corruption: The 7% of the drive that was rewritten during the failed rebuild is identified and isolated. Data in this region from Drive B is considered highly suspect and is only used if Drive A’s corresponding sector is unreadable.

Phase 3: File System Reconstruction and Data Extraction

The final, synchronised virtual image is now processed for data extraction.

  • Partition Table and Volume Mounting: We parse the virtual image for a valid GUID Partition Table (GPT) and mount the primary data volume.

  • File System Integrity Check: The volume, likely formatted with NTFS or HFS+, is analysed for consistency. We specifically check the $MFT (Master File Table) for NTFS or the Catalog File for HFS+ for errors that may have occurred during the array failure.

  • Data Extraction and Verification: The client’s data is extracted based on the repaired file system metadata. We perform checksum verification on a sample of files to confirm the integrity of the recovery.

Conclusion

The client’s data loss was not due to two simultaneous drive failures, but to a cascading logical failure triggered by the RAID controller’s inability to handle a deteriorating drive (Drive B) during a rebuild operation. The professional lab’s success hinged on physically isolating the drives from the faulty RAID controller, forensically imaging them to handle their individual instabilities, and then using software to manually reconstruct a valid mirror by intelligently combining the best available data from both members, effectively undoing the damage caused by the aborted rebuild.

The recovery was successful. By using Drive A as the primary source and supplementing it with stable data from Drive B, we achieved a 99% data recovery rate, restoring the client’s complete file structure.

Bracknell Data Recovery – 25 Years of Technical Excellence
When your hardware RAID system fails during a critical process like a rebuild, trust the UK’s No.1 HDD and SSD recovery specialists. We possess the specialised hardware and software to deconstruct failed arrays and manually reassemble your data, resolving the complex logical corruptions that consumer-grade systems cannot. Contact us for a free diagnostic.

Client Testimonials

“ I had been using a Lacie hard drive for a number of years to backup all my work files, iTunes music collection and photographs of my children. One of my children accidently one day knocked over the hard drive while it was powered up. All I received was clicking noises. Swansea data recovery recovered all my data when PC World could not.   ”

Morris James Swansea

“ Apple Mac Air laptop would not boot up and I took it to Apple store in Grand Arcade, Cardiff. They said the SSD hard drive had stopped working and was beyond their expertise. The Apple store recommended Swansea data recovery so I sent them the SSD drive. The drive contained all my uni work so I was keen to get everything recovered. Swansea Data Recovery provided me a quick and professional service and I would have no hesitation in recommending them to any of my uni mates. ”

Mark Cuthbert Cardiff

“ We have a Q-Nap server which was a 16 disk raid 5 system. Three disks failed on us one weekend due to a power outrage. We contacted our local it service provider and they could not help and recommended Swansea Data Recovery. We removed all disks from server and sent them to yourselves. Data was fully recovered and system is now back up and running. 124 staff used the server so was critical for our business. Highly recommended. ”

Gareth Davies Newport Wales

“ I am a photographer and shoot portraits for a living. My main computer which I complete all my editing on would not recognise the HDD one day. I called HP support but they could not help me and said the HDD was the issue. I contacted Swansea Data Recovery and from the first point of contact they put my mind at ease and said they could get back 100% of my data. Swansea Data Recovery have been true to their word and recovered all data for me within 24 hours. ”

Iva Evans Cardiff

“ Thanks guys for recovering my valuable data, 1st rate service. ”

Don Davies Wrexham

“ I received all my data back today and just wanted to send you an email saying how grateful we both are for recovering our data for our failed iMac.   ”

Nicola Ball Cardiff

“ Swansea Data Recovery are a life saver 10 years at work was at the risk of disappearing forever until yourselves recovered all my data, 5 star service!!!!!   ”

Manny Baker Port Talbot Wales