back up heads up for external enclosure usb HD, 1 tb gone!!

[jonyo]

almost had a disaster when doing some recovery work..

had a whole tb of stuff on a external usb HD as primary backup, also had sencondary and tertiary backups.. on other drives,

ended up dismantling the external usb HD enclosure to install the sata HD in a 'pute, did that many other times with no issues..

ended up with a formatted HD with nothing on it

i figured some new security measure that c/w some external usb HD enclosures.., disconnect it and you end up with a wiped HD..

either way, first time i ever had that happen and lesson learned

all i had left of a backup at that point was an image within an image (on another drive) ..that was also new to me, but did trick as far as a restore goes

[Jonathan183]

Are you sure it's been wiped ? have you formatted it yet ... if not could be worth a bit further investigation ...

[jonyo]

all i know is that it was loaded with data when hooked up by the usb connection cable and inside the enclosure,

when i took it apart to put the the 1tb HD in a 'pute to use, it came up as a blank and unformatted drive,

this one
ht tp://wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=240
my book essential wd

the HD was connected to a separate circuit board (attached with a few screws) in the enclosure witch i removed to put the HD in the 'pute

might have something to do with this
ht tp://wdc.com/en/products/solidstate/technology/SiSecure.aspx

SiKey Software IP and Application Data Tied to a Specific SiliconDrive

did it many other times with other HDs bought as an external enclosure setup and never had an issue with using the HDs in 'putes after removal from the enclosure,

i also re assembled the HD enclosure with the same results, iow, zip on it,
however, after putting it back in the 'pute and a fresh formatting, it worked normal from that point on

[Jonathan183]

Thanks for the info on this interesting combination of options on the SiSecure link. I can see this catching a few people out with external hard drives. I have an external drive I pull out of it's enclosure and connect direct to the computer because it has a USB interface so writing data to backup a hard drive is painfully slow ... lucky for me it had no security features like the ones you seem to have been caught out by.

[jonyo]

ended up reading the link and i think this part confirms it

Unlike consumer applications where security needs to be implemented in the removable device because the data must be available on multiple host platforms, security for OEM storage is tied to the host system which verifies the drive and creates unique encryption keys to prevent theft. If the storage device is removed from the original system, the data is rendered unreadable.

i assume some built in software kicks in when/if the HD is powered on outside of the original system or setup

anyway, a single backup doesn't cut it,

reminds me of when i read about a person that had a 2 HD setup on his 'pute as a back up system..

power supply ended up acting up and took out both drives at the same time,

that's how i ended up going with 3 separate and independent backups for serious stuff, or before going with a serious change,

or as in this case, a one shot recovery deal, no reboots or power shutoffs allowed,

ended up beating a 'click of death' HD scenario, that was on its last good spin

[drl]

Hi.

Looking at page SSD SiSecure Technology Overview I see the phrase Integrated into every SiliconDrive SSD, and I could not find that that technology applied to non-SSD hard drives, such as those on page My Book Essential

I don't see how a non-SSD hard drive could be wiped so quickly by on-powering it. This makes me think that your hard drive was really an SSD or that something else happened ... cheers, drl

[jonyo]

aahh ..i see what you mean now, i mixed up the above info (applies to the Solid State Drive) that i had a quick look at,

but it was definitely a my book essential external HD that i'd filled up,

that then for whatever reason, showed nothing after i installed it in a 'pute as described,

at that point, i lost the original drive (clicking solid and no longer booted up) as well as nothing showing on the 1tb my book essential backup.

i don't plan to replicate the above with a few other intact my book essential external drives i have,

if i get more info, or find out more, i'll update

[drl]

Hi.

To what computer was the My Book external originally connected: Linux, Windows, other?

The reason I ask is that the My Books look like they come formatted as NTFS, and if never reformatted, perhaps that might cause a new, say, Linux box, to declare that it looked empty. That's just one of the possible reasons, I suspect ... cheers, drl

[jonyo]

forget the exact details at this point , all went down a few months ago now..

started out with an updated win 7 setup, where the HD started ticking, ended up booting up ok and had to work with that (fired up OS seemed to be running OK), until satisfied with backups to then restore,

didn't wanna even risk any steps that may have required a reboot, ended up having a power failure at ~ day 5 anyway, after witch the HD would no longer boot up, just steady clicking

lost track of all the things done exactly and wasn't keeping notes. all i know for sure was all attempts to find data when the original external HD was setup in the 'pute failed, that included with a fresh win 7 install, and i even went to the point of reassembling the HD in the enclosure where it still came up empty via the standard USB connection,

the only additional info i found on the HD that may be relevant was this part,

hardware encryption

image-4.jpg

EDIT - i recall now that it was an external drive (not sure what brand though ..might be able to find that info) that had been used right up to that point, including the additional backed up stuff

made a mistake as far as it being a 'my book essential'

[drl]

Hi.

OK, thanks for trying to remember -- I know that when I'm in the depths of trying to solve a problem, I sometimes forget to takes notes, and that may be the most important time to take them to help recall the situation later.

I think we don't have enough evidence and facts to do much more on the forensic investigation here. However, if I were to encounter a similar problem, I would want to try to recreate the original situation as closely as possible -- changing as little as possible to eliminate unknown incompatibilities.

Sorry that you lost the data, but on the bright side, it sounds like you got it back from other backups, and even circumstances like that are good learning experiences ... cheers, drl