WD Data Recovery From My Book – Quoted $1500 From Other Recovery Shop

A local customer came to us with a 4TB My Book that had been mailed to another data recovery company that had quoted $1,500 for the WD data recovery. The customer declined that fee and had it returned so they could bring it in to us for a second opinion. They needed the data back at a more affordable price point and hadn’t been aware we existed locally when they first sent it into the other recovery shop.

Second Opinion Recovery From My Book

I am going to do a quick aside on how to get a drive back from a data recovery shop after getting a quote. I write in more detail about this on my page 5 things an expert knows. I recommend telling the recovery shop that you need to save up for the recovery, or you need to consider if the data is worth the recovery price, and ask for your drive back so you can store it until you decide. I don’t recommend saying “I am going to get a second opinion on this”. I have seen recovery companies that sabotage the drive so only they can recover it when a second opinion is requested.

Data recovery from WD My Book

Initial inspection of this WD data recovery hard drive showed that the PCB had burned chips visible, which I hoped would be the only issue. The drive had been opened by the previous company, so I opened it to check what it looked like inside. Unfortunately, the heads were physically damaged so they would need to be replaced before a recovery attempt could be completed.

Quoting for the Lab recovery

I contacted the client and let them know that this WD My Book hard drive would require our lab recovery tier. This tier was less than half of the previous quote they had received, so they were pleased and said to continue with the recovery. I let them know that I did not have the exact head stack I needed for this drive, so it would take an extra week or so as I waited for the donor parts to arrive. He approved the WD data recovery so I went ahead and ordered the needed parts.

Head and PCB Swap for WD Data Recovery

Once the donor parts arrived I completed the head swap and also swapped the PCB to get access to the data on the platters. The PCB swap required that I physically move the ROM chip over from the failed PCB to the new PCB. The damage to the original PCB meant that I couldn’t get the ROM information transferred with the PC-3000.

Once the replacement head stack was installed and the new board had the correct ROM chip, the drive spun up and got ready! I completed the standard process of setting up the drive for imaging, then started with an easy slow imaging pass. That pass was successful in getting 100% of the sectors from the drive!

Successful Affordable Data Recovery

There was SED encryption which added another layer of difficulty to this one, but I was able to get through all of that and recovered 100% of the data on the drive with the help of some of my favorite data recovery software.

The total cost for this WD data recovery was less than half what the client was quoted by the other recovery lab, so he was very pleased with the results. He appreciated that the work could be done locally by someone he would do their best for him as a neighbor.

WD Data Recovery From My Book Service

If you would like to work with me in recovering the data off your drive, please just contact us to start! I am happy to help you through the recovery process. I work with drives from all over the country via my mail-in recovery service. Our affordable data recovery rates and friendly customer service set us apart in this industry.

Drive info: WD 4TB My Book NASware 3.0, WD40EFRX-68N32N0, Date: 19 APR 2018, DCM: HHNNNT2MAB, DCX: JN063362H R/N: 800055, Product of Thailand

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