Unreadable 3 TB WD Caviar Green Internal HDD

I will say this, if Windows sees the partition as RAW, chances are a live distro wont see it either.
You mentioned that your Blu-Ray drive won't start things properly, and other software hangs up...
Maybe your motherboard or PSU are flaky?

3TB drives have a high failure rate, and what's worse, they are difficult to backup since you need that much storage space outside that system. I have heard stories of WD attempting data recovery for free on these larger drives due to the failure rates. Maybe you will get lucky? If not, I suggest calling WD Recovery services as they will be the best bet at recovering data from your drive IMO.
 
OK, I finally made a bootable Ubuntu DVD, and I have booted my 64-bit computer off it. I'm looking at the Ubuntu desktop, running from the boot DVD (that is in my BluRay drive). Now, what do I do? I played with all the buttons, but I don't see a way of looking at my directory structure.
 
What version are you on? 12.0.4? Click the folder icon on the left. In the left pane of the window, it should list your drives.

(It's a CD, actually)
 
What version are you on? 12.0.4? Click the folder icon on the left. In the left pane of the window, it should list your drives.

(It's a CD, actually)

Apparently, I'm using Ubuntu 12.04. The folder icon to the left does not show any drives. It shows under the caption, "Computer":

Home
Desktop
Documents
Downloads
Music
Pictures
Videos
File System
Trash

Under File System, it shows 22 Linux folders, but no drives.

I used a DVD+R blank to make this bootable disk on my BluRay reader/DVD writer. My BluRay drive refused to recognize blank CDs. For some reason, I can't get a CD burner to work on either of my running computers.
 
I just now plugged my 3 TB drive into a USB converter hub, and plugged it into my 32-bit system. Disk Management on my 32-bit system sees it, too, as an unused 746.52 GB partition. It does not have a drive letter and the option of assigning a drive letter to it is grayed out.
 
This is because it is RAW.

RAW is not a file format, RAW is how a drive is shipped. In other words, the drive lost the partition tables. If you are VERY lucky, you might be able to recover your data using recuva, after recovery to a known good drive, I suggest sending the 3TB drive back under an RMA because once it looses the file system, IMO, the drive is not reliable, and 3TB is a lot of potential data loss.

Curious, does this 3TB drive use a fancy SATA controller that shipped with it for use? If so, that is another possible reason your drive is showing as RAW. When 3 and 4TB first came out, they had to ship the drives with special PCIe SATA controllers since most systems would not properly recognize the drive. The drives would default to less than 1TB of storage space due to not having the special controller. Hooking these kind of drives (the ones that required a special PCIe SATA controller) upto external enclosures causes some serious issues with data loss.


So, put the drive back into your PCI, find Recuva, make sure it supports your SATA controller, load it up, and see if it can scan your drive for lost files. Do NOT create new partitions/format/store data on this drive till your data is recovered. Doing that will result in most cases damaged/corrupted/unrecoverable data.
 
I've heard of the SATA drive controller; I think it was mentioned in documentation that came with my drive. I didn't need the controller and I don't use it.

WD tech support has me running an extended test of the drive, which will take several hours to complete (the program estimates another 7.5 hours). If that doesn't work, I'll try Recuva.

Thanks.
 
The test is nothing more than a very long chkdsk with repair enabled. I have yet to see those do partition restores and fix missing data. Though, WD will want an error code I am sure before they authorize anything.
 
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