Performing data recovery on this RAID0 WD My Book Duo with two 8TB WD Red Helium model hard disk drives was very tricky. Why?
Well, for starters, both of these NASWare ready model hard drives strangely sustained electronic failures. Upon testing each HDD at the time for file recovery, neither drive was spinning when powering on. Very strange, but true. We are not sure if the drives sustained this issues naturally inside the native Western Digital external enclosure, or possibly when the computer repair shop technician tested them prior to referring the recovery project to us here at Data Recovery Guru.
With that in mind, parts were ordered to repair the PCB on each hard disk drive, as well as sourcing an entirely new WD casing. Each donor PCB was properly reprogrammed with the patient's firmware and outfitted for the customer's Helium HDD.
The next step in the data recovery process was to inspect the SMART attributes on each drive using advanced data recovery software. Both WD hard drives show wear-n-tear, however no significant concern, especially that we only operate in a forensic sound manner, working with the hard drives in read-only mode.
The data recovery service on this 16TB WD My Book Duo was interesting to handle due to 2 reasons:
a) The volume storing the files is a 16TB volume configured as RAID 0 array
b) WD uses a hardware encryption technology from the factory
As result, in order to perform a successful external drive recovery on this RAID 0 models, both drives need to be mounted inside a compatible working enclosure, so that the RAID is assembled correctly and the data decrypted properly.
Finally, the data recovery process from this external drive went as expected, mounting the Mac volume on a MacBook Pro, access the 7.1TB worth of files and extract them out to a brand new Seagate USB external drive.
This type of file recovery requires advanced data recovery software and hardware knowledge and tools, including a substantial investment of over $600 in parts alone.
If ever in doubt about what steps to take when dealing with a broken WD external drive, then it is best to consult with a local data recovery specialist. We provide a free data recovery consultation and diagnosis to all customers and partners here in the Greater Boston Area, as well as anywhere in the United States and overseas.