Some years back (after 2010) I was using a 1 TB WDig my book (WDBAAF001HBK-01). Eventually, the USB connector died, taking at least a few associated SMT components around it with it, destroying the interface board beyond all repair.
However, the hard drive itself (wd10ears, 00y5b1) was (and I am fairly sure still is) perfectly fine.
I put the drive in a magnetic bag and packed it away.
The drive has data on it that is completely irreplaceable and I do not have the money to send it off for any kind of competent data recovery. I am inexperienced at data recovery, but can generally and read directions pretty well.
Recently I got a vantec SATA to USB setup, and hooked the drive up to my laptop. The adapter is working perfectly - the drive, however, doesn't show up in My computer (I am using XP still ... no, don't ask, does what I need it to ATM). Under Computer management subsection Disk management the drive shows, but I have not initialized it to prevent further damage.
In Device management, the drive shows under Disk drives, and it says the drive is working fine in properties there. The drive makes none of the dying or dead HDD sounds and spins up - no clicking, shrieking, any of that nonsense.
I've done a little bit on the disk with TestDisk, it popped up with Partition sector doesn't have the endmark 0xAA55
and 25% into the quick search I stopped it prematurely W/O any partitions found.
DMDE doesn't show all zero sectors - I'm going out on a limb and guessing that means the data is still there.
WD data lifeguard diagnostics quick test says:
Test Option: QUICK TEST
Model Number: WDC WD10EARS-00Y5B1
Unit Serial Number: WD-WMAV51853200
Firmware Number: 80.00A80
Capacity: 1000.20 GB
SMART Status: PASS
Test Result: PASS
Test Time: 20:40:19, December 28, 2016
I suspect I'm probably getting screwed out of my irreplaceable data (so far) by some proprietary WD software/hardware.
Does anybody else have any ideas of what's going on and how/if it may be possible to recover the data?
Is there any useful information I've left out so far?