mjhjmtu

My friend has a WD Elements 1TB USB external disk, that suffered a bit of a bump. We're looking at recovering anything from it if possible.

I plugged it into a Debian workstation to see if we could image it - the LED indicator on the HDD lit-up - however, it does not mount (probably expected, consider the situation).

dmesg output is here - it seems to take a long time to spin up:

[2587294.790208] nemo[5669]: segfault at 1 ip 00007f47e298650e sp 00007fff4cab2ba8 error 4 in libc-2.24.so[7f47e28f7000+195000]
[2587587.324342] usb 2-4.3: new SuperSpeed USB device number 10 using xhci_hcd
[2587587.344951] usb 2-4.3: New USB device found, idVendor=1058, idProduct=1078
[2587587.344953] usb 2-4.3: New USB device strings: Mfr=2, Product=3, SerialNumber=1
[2587587.344953] usb 2-4.3: Product: Elements 1078
[2587587.344954] usb 2-4.3: Manufacturer: Western Digital
[2587587.344955] usb 2-4.3: SerialNumber: 57583531453834464D303537
[2587587.345937] usb-storage 2-4.3:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[2587587.346042] scsi host9: usb-storage 2-4.3:1.0
[2587588.376743] scsi 9:0:0:0: Direct-Access WD Elements 1078 1065 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
[2587588.377076] sd 9:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
[2587588.377924] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdc] Spinning up disk...
[2587589.404144] .
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[2587669.427013] usb 2-4.3: Disable of device-initiated U1 failed.
[2587674.546726] usb 2-4.3: Disable of device-initiated U2 failed.
[2587674.626818] usb 2-4.3: reset SuperSpeed USB device number 10 using xhci_hcd
[2587674.647535] ready
[2587674.647699] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdc] 1953458176 512-byte logical blocks: (1.00 TB/931 GiB)
[2587674.647942] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off
[2587674.647943] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 53 00 10 08
[2587674.648184] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdc] No Caching mode page found
[2587674.648186] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through
[2587674.649213] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdc] Spinning up disk...
[2587675.666591] .
[2587676.694499] .
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[2587754.061826] ready
[2587790.251186] usb 2-4.3: Disable of device-initiated U1 failed.
[2587795.370852] usb 2-4.3: Disable of device-initiated U2 failed.
[2587800.746540] xhci_hcd 0000:00:14.0: Timeout while waiting for setup device command
[2587806.122174] xhci_hcd 0000:00:14.0: Timeout while waiting for setup device command
[2587806.330124] usb 2-4.3: device not accepting address 10, error -62
[2587811.753786] xhci_hcd 0000:00:14.0: Timeout while waiting for setup device command
[2587817.129440] xhci_hcd 0000:00:14.0: Timeout while waiting for setup device command
[2587817.341405] usb 2-4.3: device not accepting address 10, error -62
[2587822.761085] xhci_hcd 0000:00:14.0: Timeout while waiting for setup device command
[2587828.136765] xhci_hcd 0000:00:14.0: Timeout while waiting for setup device command
[2587828.344692] usb 2-4.3: device not accepting address 10, error -62
[2587833.768413] xhci_hcd 0000:00:14.0: Timeout while waiting for setup device command
[2587839.144037] xhci_hcd 0000:00:14.0: Timeout while waiting for setup device command
[2587839.352000] usb 2-4.3: device not accepting address 10, error -62
[2587839.353083] usb 2-4.3: USB disconnect, device number 10
[2587839.368030] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_NO_CONNECT driverbyte=DRIVER_OK
[2587839.368033] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 08 00
[2587839.368034] blk_update_request: I/O error, dev sdc, sector 0
[2587839.368037] Buffer I/O error on dev sdc, logical block 0, async page read
[2587839.368061] ldm_validate_partition_table(): Disk read failed.
[2587839.368070] Dev sdc: unable to read RDB block 0
[2587839.368083] sdc: unable to read partition table
[2587839.368250] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdc] Read Capacity(10) failed: Result: hostbyte=DID_NO_CONNECT driverbyte=DRIVER_OK
[2587839.368251] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdc] Sense not available.
[2587839.368284] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is on
[2587839.368285] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: ba da b2 8b
[2587839.368295] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI disk
[2587845.031664] xhci_hcd 0000:00:14.0: Timeout while waiting for setup device command
[2587850.407290] xhci_hcd 0000:00:14.0: Timeout while waiting for setup device command
[2587850.619252] usb 2-4.3: device not accepting address 11, error -62
[2587856.038958] xhci_hcd 0000:00:14.0: Timeout while waiting for setup device command
[2587861.414603] xhci_hcd 0000:00:14.0: Timeout while waiting for setup device command
[2587861.622545] usb 2-4.3: device not accepting address 12, error -62
[2587867.046212] xhci_hcd 0000:00:14.0: Timeout while waiting for setup device command
[2587872.421887] xhci_hcd 0000:00:14.0: Timeout while waiting for setup device command
[2587872.629838] usb 2-4.3: device not accepting address 13, error -62
[2587878.053533] xhci_hcd 0000:00:14.0: Timeout while waiting for setup device command
[2587883.429152] xhci_hcd 0000:00:14.0: Timeout while waiting for setup device command
[2587883.637124] usb 2-4.3: device not accepting address 14, error -62
[2587883.637159] usb 2-4-port3: unable to enumerate USB device

It eventually does, I kickstart a dd-job, but it doesn't actually write out any bytes, and then eventually the disk seems to disconnect itself.

Is that indicative of an issue with the disk or with the USB interface?

I do have a separate USB 3.0-to-SATA bridge, I could remove the internal disk from WD Elements, and try it on that - however, not sure if it would make any difference at this stage?

Or anything else to try, that we could somehow take an image?

It eventually does, I kickstart a dd-job, but it doesn't actually
write out any bytes, and then eventually the disk seems to disconnect
itself.

DISCLAIMER: it is hard to tell the exact extent of the damage to the disk, it looks like AT LEAST the first part of the disk is damaged.

First off, try to skip some blocks with dd using skip=. The problem might be that there is a defective part near the beginning of the disk (=> you are lucky).

I doubt it would be the SATA->USB interface, although you could try plugging the disk directly via SATA, in a tower for example.

I would normally use testdisk to attempt to recover whatever can be recovered. It is a bit of hit and miss. Use the right tools for the task.