Recovery of Buffalo HD-NRLD8.0U3 and HD-AD8U3 Drives with Platter Damage

This article covers two Buffalo 8 TB external hard drives, the HD-NRLD8.0U3 and HD-AD8U3. Both contained a Seagate ST8000VM006 HDD.

HD-NRLD8.0U3 Platter-Scratch Recovery (February 2024)

Symptoms and Diagnosis

The drive appeared in Device Manager, but no files were accessible in File Explorer. It produced abnormal noises during preliminary diagnosis. Inspection confirmed platter scratches and associated magnetic coating damage.

Turnaround Time

Approximately two weeks

Recovery Result

Approximately 3.4 TB of intact files recovered, plus roughly 600 GB of damaged files

Recovery Process

The first device was a Buffalo HD-NRLD8.0U3 external hard drive.

After removing the internal drive, we identified it as a Seagate ST8000VM006. When powered on, the HDD produced the repetitive clicking commonly associated with platter damage. The model number was unfamiliar because the drive was a relatively new unit manufactured in 2023. Its family was not yet listed in the PC-3000 professional data-recovery system.

Knowing an HDD’s family is important because drives within different families behave very differently. The ST2000DM001 and ST3000DM001 belong to the Grenada family, which has an unusually high incidence of platter scratches. The ST1000LM035 and ST2000LM007 belong to the Rosewood family, where failures involving the MediaCache firmware subsystem are common.

Failure patterns, control methods, and effective recovery techniques all vary by family. In this case, the family was still unknown when work began.

Opening the drive and inspecting its platters confirmed the expected scratch damage.

The damage did not look dramatic, but the platter surface was clearly scored. The drive contained four platters, with both sides of each used for data storage, giving a total of eight recording surfaces.

We excluded the damaged surface and imaged the remaining seven. This allowed us to recover 86.3% of the sectors in the data-bearing area. Although PC-3000 did not list this family at the time, established recovery methods still worked.

Maximizing the recovered data took approximately two weeks. Because the customer could identify the exact names and locations of the most important files, we delivered a priority subset before the full recovery was complete.

The drive appears to belong to the V15Pine family.

HD-AD8U3 Platter-Scratch Recovery After Another Lab Declared It Unrecoverable (November 2024)

Symptoms and Diagnosis

Another data-recovery provider had declared the drive unrecoverable, and the HDD arrived already opened. Internal inspection revealed scratches and magnetic coating damage on two recording surfaces.

Turnaround Time

Approximately three weeks

Recovery Result

• Approximately 250,000 intact files, totaling about 380 GB
• Approximately 8,500 damaged files, totaling about 120 GB

Recovery Process

The second device was a Buffalo HD-AD8U3 external hard drive. Like the first, it contained a Seagate ST8000VM006.

Because the HDD had already been opened, we began with an internal inspection. Two of its eight recording surfaces were scratched and had to be bypassed.

After thoroughly cleaning the platters, we extracted data from the undamaged surfaces. Reading the two scratched surfaces was not viable: moving a head across the damaged areas would have destroyed it almost immediately. We therefore excluded two of the eight surfaces and recovered approximately 75% of the data-bearing area.

We analyzed the disk image and reconstructed the files from the sectors obtained. The ST8000VM006 family was still absent from PC-3000’s supported-family list when we accepted this case, but we completed the recovery and delivered the recovered data successfully.

If you can no longer access data on a Buffalo external hard drive, contact Scratch Lab for an expert diagnosis.