Hard Drive Recovery

[rickwoodall]

Hi folks. Apologies if I'm posting in the wrong place, I'm not very familiar with this forum.

I have a WD2500JS-60NCB1 DCM:HSBACT2CAN. It hasn't worked for about 10 years and is predominantly full of music projects. However, there is a slim possibility that I might have saved a bitcoin code on there. I'm 95% certain that I didn't actually save the bitcoin on there but it's a long time ago so I don't fully remember.

The drive itself was originally inside a housing/box i.e. it needed mains power to work, but I've taken it out of the housing and tried it with an external hard drive reader and I'm still not getting anything. I just wondered if anyone could offerme any advice?

I've considered paying someone to recover it but I'd have to have some way of knowing that they hadn't just taken the bitcoin (assuming it's on there) and removed al trace of it from the harddrive. bit of a conundrum really.

TIA for any advice

many thanks,

Rick

 

[beers]

If it's 3.5" you'd also need a power source for your external reader unless it was literally a powered dock.

If you can verify power and data cabling and still can't even see a device ID sometimes you can swap boards on the drive with a donor from the same kinda drive, although a lot of self investigation or recovery actions could also cause further damage or reduce your probability of recovery, assuming it's above zero to begin with.

 

[johnb35]

That is an IDE drive and most likely way over 10 years old at this point, as the first of SATA was released in 2003. So what happens when you connect it to a pc? Does it turn on and spin up? You should be able to feel it. Without more info, the drive could be totally dead and could be upwards of $1000 to recover any data on the drive if you send it in to a professional data recovery company.

 

[rickwoodall]

That is an IDE drive and most likely way over 10 years old at this point, as the first of SATA was released in 2003. So what happens when you connect it to a pc? Does it turn on and spin up? You should be able to feel it. Without more info, the drive could be totally dead and could be upwards of $1000 to recover any data on the drive if you send it in to a professional data recovery company.

No it doesn't start up or make any sound when connected via the harddrive reader does this mean it's completely dead?

 

[rickwoodall]

just out of curiosity, is this an appropriate reader for the drive? it works on the similar one to the left but maybe the one I'm trying to access needs a different power suply or something?

 

[johnb35]

just out of curiosity, is this an appropriate reader for the drive? it works on the similar one to the left but maybe the one I'm trying to access needs a different power suply or something?

The one on the left is a SATA hard drive which requires a sata power cable. With the one on the right, as long as you have I assume a usb cable plugged into the computer and the other one plugged into power then it should work. Are you sure the reader you have is good? What do the other ends of the reader look like? Normally we recommend something like this as it can read sata and IDE desktop and laptop hard drives.

Amazon.com: Vantec SATA/IDE TO USB 3.0 Adapter (CB-ISA225-U3) : Electronics

Amazon.com: Vantec SATA/IDE TO USB 3.0 Adapter (CB-ISA225-U3) : Electronics

www.amazon.com

 

[rickwoodall]

The one on the left is a SATA hard drive which requires a sata power cable. With the one on the right, as long as you have I assume a usb cable plugged into the computer and the other one plugged into power then it should work. Are you sure the reader you have is good? What do the other ends of the reader look like? Normally we recommend something like this as it can read sata and IDE desktop and laptop hard drives.

Amazon.com: Vantec SATA/IDE TO USB 3.0 Adapter (CB-ISA225-U3) : Electronics

Amazon.com: Vantec SATA/IDE TO USB 3.0 Adapter (CB-ISA225-U3) : Electronics

www.amazon.com

I've been using this. Works okay on the one on the left but not the one on the right (the one I'm trying to access)

 

[johnb35]

Can you show us the end of the adapter you are using and then end of the hard drivce that you are trying to connect to? Trying to confirm whether or not you have an IDE or SATA hard drive. Until we see that, then we are only grasping at straws. If both drives have the same type of connection then most likely the drive is dead if the adapter works on the other drive. But as I said, we need more pictures to verify what type of drive it is.