drive spins normally, DR pgms do not work.

[Folkert Rienstra]

I do not believe their is a physical problem with the drive.

I didn't say there was. I said to get rid of the bad sectors first.

It was perfect before this moron tech got his hands on it and he
screwed up the logical tables, prob. FAT on the drive.

Then there are no bad sectors, but later on you bring them up again.
So what is it? Surely the tech didn't write bad sectors.

The drive still makes no
noise and I can access most of the files.

This has nothing to do with the 'tables' then.

Also I ran checks on the
drive b4 this idiot got his hands on it and it was perfect. What is
needed is a program to find the data and rewrite to another drive.
NONE of the so called data recovery programs work; and I don't think
I want to run my good system 24 hours to see if GDB gets anything.
Same for Spinrite. They are too damn slow.

Again, nothing to do with the 'tables'.

I think Rod's suggestion
that I image the drive is a good one.

That too will get rid of the bad sectors but may hold the cloning
program captive. That's why I say to get rid of the bad sectors first.

 

[harveywallbanger]

I think he is referring to diskpatch; from their web page:


"DiskPatch is designed to tackle the most common issues that prevent you
from accessing your data; a corrupt MBR (Master Boot Record), corrupt
partition tables, accidentally deleted partitions, corrupt boot sectors,
and 'bad' sectors.

Corruption of the MBR, partition tables and boot sectors account for the
majority of the problems that lead to 'mass data loss'; situations where
an entire drive or partition can't be accessed."

Sorry but I haven't seen very many solutions to the OP problem here.
This group seems to be a place for arguing and flaming over what is
wrong with a drive instead of offering any useful information on how to
retrieve data in these cases.

They dont say that.




Yes, thats why the SMART system was developed.




And often doesnt.




The evidence is that its dying.

You never did try the Everest SMART stats.

If Everest is like ResQ what good is it? ResQ seems to just offer
guesses as to where the problem lies; a starting point for arguments
that generally become flames.

 

[HaHaHoHoHeeHee]

Typical to a mapping (geometry) error.\

Thanks, but that says little or nothing.

Typical to a geometry error.


Typical to a geometry error. The last thing you want to do in such
event is to run file system repair software (e.g. SCANDISK, CHKDSK, or
NDD). The latter will perpetuate the error and irreversibly corrupt
the file system.

What harm is running scandisk if no fixing is done. Drive is not showing
signs of disintegrating further, since the sector errors seem to be
logical errors.

The problem may be genuine (a failing drive) or could be the result of
incorrect HS translation.


After having read the rest of this thread, I'm afraid that you already
missed the opportunity to recover anything of value from that drive.

What makes you assume this?

 

[HaHaHoHoHeeHee]

In case the drive is dying then this would be the silliest thing to
do.

Agreed. I have done nothing to write to the drive.

Most dying drives do not make noise.

Not in my limited experience. Physical problems generally cause noise.

What was needed was to assess whether the drive is working with the
correct settings, and if it did, then to clone it before it develops
too many bad sectors or becomes inaccessible.

Whatever you mean by that. If cloning (assume you mean to the good
drive) means putting my primary drive at any risk, I'm not going to do
that. Already got most of the data off the bad drive, it's the several
files that were inaccessible due to read/sector errors I'm after.
Diskpatch clones drives but states you have to wipe the destination
drive to "reduce noise". Forget that.

The software isn't to blame here.

Sure it is, cuz no one has created a program that actually does the job.
They all make lofty promises, but fail on delivery.

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

I think he is referring to diskpatch;
Likely.

from their web page:

"DiskPatch is designed to tackle the most common issues that prevent you from
accessing your data; a corrupt MBR (Master Boot Record), corrupt partition
tables, accidentally deleted partitions, corrupt boot sectors, and 'bad'
sectors.

Corruption of the MBR, partition tables and boot sectors account for the
majority of the problems that lead to 'mass data loss'; situations where an
entire drive or partition can't be accessed."

Yeah, and he is clearly misinterpreting what they are saying there.

The 'freezing' is evidence that the drive is dying,
retrying on bads, and that was the reason for
suggesting Everest, to see if the drive is dying.

Recovery is done very differently if the drive is dying to when the
partition tables have got stomped on or the wrong mapping is used.

Sorry but I haven't seen very many solutions to the OP problem here.

There are plenty of solutions available, they just
depend on first deciding if the drive is dying or not
and then applying the appropriate recovery technique.

This group seems to be a place for arguing and flaming over what is wrong with
a drive instead of offering any useful information on how to retrieve data in
these cases.

This group has both. It isnt hard to sort out the difference.

They actually talk about mass loss of files, not 'these sector errors'

Particularly the 'freezing'

If Everest is like ResQ

It isnt. It just displays the drive SMART data in
a very readable and easy to comprehend way.

what good is it?

It allows you to see if the drive is dying. If the drive is dying,
quite different recovery methods should be used, particularly
cloning the drive to another using something like clonedisk,
to get what data is available before the drive gets any worse.

If the drive isnt dying and the only problem is with the drive
mapping or stomped on partition tables etc, then you use
a completely different approach to recovering the data and
you dont need something like clonedisk to make a copy of
the drive, any sector by sector copier will do that fine.

ResQ seems to just offer guesses as to where the problem lies;

Clonedisk JUST copys the sectors on the drive to a new drive
and trys hard to get data out of bad sectors when its cloning.

a starting point for arguments that generally become flames.

Thats just ****nert being a complete prat.

Anyone with a clue just ignores him.

 

[Rod Speed]

Zvi Netiv wrote

Aren't you the guy who always recommends Clonedisk?

Yes, its his program. That should have been obvious from his sig.

Last time I tried to download that program, I got a "page not found" at their
website.

If you click on the licensing conditions link for clonedisk, it leads to where
you can pay for it and presumably download it after you have done that.

Also, no one ever explains, that I've seen, the process of cloning and
recovery from that. Do you clone to a secondary drive

Yes, and the description of clonedisk basically says that.
http://www.invircible.com/deal/clonedisk

or to cd-rws or what? If you clone to the primary drive,

That would be completely mad.

will that not replace that drive's data with the junk data from the bad drive?
How do you recover bad sector data from the clone?

It attempts to get what data it can from the bad sectors, and copys the
good sectors, so you can bang on the clone as much as you like with
whatever tools you choose to try, and arent banging on the dying drive.

In other words you get what you can off the dying drive and then
you can do what you like at your leasure to the clone to try recovering
what you can from the clone, without it being about to die.

 

[Rod Speed]

Agreed. I have done nothing to write to the drive.

Not in my limited experience. Physical problems generally cause noise.

Fraid not. Most obviously with a poor electrical connection to the heads,
thats a physical problem that doesnt necessarily produce any noise.

Whatever you mean by that. If cloning (assume you mean to
the good drive) means putting my primary drive at any risk,

No, he's talking about cloning the bad drive to a third
drive while you can, before the bad drive dies completely.

I'm not going to do that. Already got most of the data off the bad drive, it's
the several files that were inaccessible due to read/sector errors I'm after.

Clonedisk will do that, try to get what it can out of the bad sectors.

Diskpatch clones drives but states you have to wipe
the destination drive to "reduce noise". Forget that.

You clone to a third drive.

Sure it is, cuz no one has created a program that actually
does the job. They all make lofty promises, but fail on delivery.

No software can do anything much about a dying drive.

If the drive is dying, it should be cloned to a third drive while you
can and then the recovery software will work on the clone fine.
You wont see the freezing thats due to the bad sectors being retried.

 

[HaHaHooHooHeeHee]

I didn't say there was. I said to get rid of the bad sectors first.


Then there are no bad sectors, but later on you bring them up again.
So what is it? Surely the tech didn't write bad sectors.


This has nothing to do with the 'tables' then.

I never claimed to be an expert on hard drives (obviously).
So you are saying that ANY bad sector error has nothing to do with
ANY logical error, such as scrambled FAT? IOW, if GDB, for example
reports bad sectors, that HAS to be a physical problem with the drive?
I find this hard to fanthom since the rest of the drive operates
normally, does not seem to have increased bad sectors and makes no
noise. Since from your previous posting you seem to like spinrite,
does that offer anything more GDB or the others seem to offer? I have it
but have not used it due to the many reports of day+ completion times
from both reviewers and users.

 

[J. Clarke]

I never claimed to be an expert on hard drives (obviously).
So you are saying that ANY bad sector error has nothing to do with
ANY logical error, such as scrambled FAT?

A bad sector can cause a scrambled FAT. A scrambled FAT cannot cause a bad
sector. On the other hand malware on your system could both scramble the
FAT and falsely report bad sectors.

IOW, if GDB, for example
reports bad sectors, that HAS to be a physical problem with the drive?

Unless it's the result of a bug in GDB or a false report generated by a
virus or other malware, yes.

I find this hard to fanthom since the rest of the drive operates
normally, does not seem to have increased bad sectors and makes no
noise.

IDE drives have sparing. A drive can have a large number of bad sectors and
you will never see it because they have all been mapped to spare sectors.
However when the drive runs out of spares, then you'll start to see bad
sectors reported. You'll also see bad sectors that have developed since
the data was written--they're supposed to be remapped on the next write
unless the drive is out of spares mappable to that location.

Since from your previous posting you seem to like spinrite,
does that offer anything more GDB or the others seem to offer? I have it
but have not used it due to the many reports of day+ completion times
from both reviewers and users.

Spinrite basically reads or tries to read the data on a bad sector and then
rewrites it. On the old stepper motor drives where the head position
occasionally drifted this worked because it realigned the data with the
drifted heads. On IDE drives it works because it allows the drive to remap
the sector. The long completion times are the result of the number of
repetitive reads needed for it to decide that it's gotten an accurate read
off the bad sector or give up on it and move on.

Generally speaking it's better to replace the drive than to Spinrite it--if
it's degenerated to the point that Spinrite seems necessary then it's
generally not got long to live.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

"HaHaHoHoHeeHee" (e-mail address removed)> wrote in news:[email protected]

I never claimed to be an expert on hard drives (obviously).
So you are saying that ANY bad sector error has nothing to do with
ANY logical error, such as scrambled FAT? IOW, if GDB, for example
reports bad sectors, that HAS to be a physical problem with the drive?

Not necessarily physical (as in physical damage) but physical in the sense of
the computed ECC not being equal to the recorded ECC of the sector contents.
The drive will treat that as a physical bad sector until this matter with the ECCs
is resolved. That will require overwriting that sector.

I find this hard to fanthom since the rest of the drive operates
normally, does not seem to have increased bad sectors and makes no noise.

Well, it may be so silent that you don't actually hear it but you notice it
by it taking very very long to read.

Since from your previous posting you seem to like spinrite,

I think you confuse me with someone else.

does that offer anything more GDB or the others seem to offer?

Probably, if you are interested in every last bit that may possibly be retrievable.
However, if the bad sector is an incompletely written sector with definitely
wrong ECC, then that will never happen. Spinrite will try until it drops to get lucky,
to once read the bad sector with a correct ECC. Or if it gets differing results to
put together (reconstruct) the most often encountered equal parts in a new sector.
That will never happen with incompletely written sectors.

I have it but have not used it due to the many reports of day+ completion times
from both reviewers and users.

Yes. And if you have a drive on it's way out, that will surely kill it off.

 

[Zvi Netiv]

Aren't you the guy who always recommends Clonedisk? Last time I tried to
download that program, I got a "page not found" at their website.

Have you tried www.resq.co.il/download/clonedsk.exe ?

Also, no one ever explains, that I've seen, the process of cloning and
recovery from that. Do you clone to a secondary drive or to cd-rws or
what? If you clone to the primary drive, will that not replace that
drive's data with the junk data from the bad drive? How do you recover
bad sector data from the clone?

CloneDisk is a forensics and professional data recovery tool, and requires a
separate drive, in good condition, as destination.

Data in bad/marginal sectors is recovered by multiple read attempts but there is
a limit to how long you let the cloner to dwell on a single sector. If too
long, then the drive may be dead before you finish cloning it, and if too short,
then you may lose data that could be recovered if you insisted longer. The
practical solution is a compromise between the two.

The final phase of data recovery should always be conducted on the clone.

Regards, Zvi

 

[Zvi Netiv]

Zvi Netiv wrote:
[...]

After having read the rest of this thread, I'm afraid that you already missed
the opportunity to recover anything of value from that drive.

Nothing in his post states that he tried to write to the drive or fix
errors. You seem to have alot of advice as to what the problem is, but
little information on how to fix it? I've notice that your ResQ program
is good for giving alot of mathematical detail and generating arguments
in these newsgroups over what the problem with a drive is, but little,
it seems, in the way of solutions?

Read the following thread (press "show options" when viewing)
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage/msg/60787dda7d93dec4

Regards, Zvi

 

[Zvi Netiv]

[...]

Typical to a mapping (geometry) error.\

Thanks, but that says little or nothing.

It depends to whom. What it means is that at some stage, the drive may have
worked with different settings in the BIOS, either translation mode or
parameters, resulting in a different CHS mapping. The implications of such
event reach far.

[...]
This anomaly suggests that a different BIOS translation mode may have been used
with the drive.

What harm is running scandisk if no fixing is done. Drive is not showing
signs of disintegrating further, since the sector errors seem to be
logical errors.

The way to assure that SCANDISK fixes nothing is to launch it from command line,
preferably from true DOS, with the /CHECKONLY switch. The fact that SCANDISK
went as far as 95% of the drive suggests that this isn't how you ran SCANDISK.

[...]

What makes you assume this?

Experience, observing small details, and seeing how you made the wrong choices.

At first, you failed to assess the real cause to the problem (you have been
preoccupied with blaming the technician, and then data recovery software that
aren't worth their salt), whether a corrupted file system is the cause (what you
call "logical errors"), or genuine bad sectors formed on your drive.

In the previous case (file system corruption), the course of action should have
been totally different. Unfortunately you already messed too far for DR
software to be able to recover your files.

As for the other possibility (bad sectors), you should have cloned the drive
immediately on realizing that bad sectors are at the source of the problem.
Here too, you lost precious time, and what's worse, you let changes to the drive
that you aren't even aware of, and cloning the drive now may not be worth the
effort.

Regards, Zvi

 

[HaHaHooHooHeeHee]

Thanks to Folkert, J. Clark and Rod Speed for their informative replies.
Especially learned from Folkert and Clark's explainations. Good think I
have alot of time to investigate all of this.

I will have to look up the ECC business, I think it has something to do
with the mfg. id?

Does anyone know if there are any other programs besides clonedisk and
drivepatch that attempt to recover bad sectors in DOS? I've read reviews
on diskpatch and they are mixed. Makers of clonedisk's web page is not
very friendly-difficult/impossible to dl a trial. Restorer2000 only
works in Windoze.

I like the diskpatch feature of adjustable reads on bad sectors. I think
you might be able to do this with Sprinrite also, but not sure. Zillions
of programs out there, but none seem superior to all the others.

 

[Bob]

Thanks to Rod Speed

If you pay any attention to this notorious troll, you will suffer the
consequences.

You have been warned.

--

Map of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
http://home.houston.rr.com/rkba/vrwc.html

"The possession of arms is the distinction
between a free man and a slave."
-- Andrew Fletcher, Discourse on Government (1695)

 

[HaHaHooHooHeeHee]

[...]

Most files appear in explorer and are accessible, except that many
give "cannot access drive" errors.

Typical to a mapping (geometry) error.\

Thanks, but that says little or nothing.

It depends to whom. What it means is that at some stage, the drive
may have worked with different settings in the BIOS, either
translation mode or parameters, resulting in a different CHS mapping.
The implications of such event reach far.

[...]
This anomaly suggests that a different BIOS translation mode may have
been used with the drive.

You're right about this, and probably only this. The imbecile tech
(maybe you know him?) probably installed the drive wrongly and forced it
to write incorrectly. Not to worry, I already have a solution that will
work in court. I have most of my data and I will recover my time and
costs in Court.

What harm is running scandisk if no fixing is done. Drive is not
showing signs of disintegrating further, since the sector errors seem
to be logical errors.

The way to assure that SCANDISK fixes nothing is to launch it from
command line, preferably from true DOS, with the /CHECKONLY switch.
The fact that SCANDISK went as far as 95% of the drive suggests that
this isn't how you ran SCANDISK.

[...]

What makes you assume this?

Experience, observing small details, and seeing how you made the wrong
choices.

At first, you failed to assess the real cause to the problem (you have
been preoccupied with blaming the technician, and then data recovery
software that aren't worth their salt), whether a corrupted file
system is the cause (what you call "logical errors"), or genuine bad
sectors formed on your drive.

In the previous case (file system corruption), the course of action
should have been totally different. Unfortunately you already messed
too far for DR software to be able to recover your files.

As for the other possibility (bad sectors), you should have cloned the
drive immediately on realizing that bad sectors are at the source of
the problem. Here too, you lost precious time, and what's worse, you
let changes to the drive that you aren't even aware of, and cloning
the drive now may not be worth the effort.

Not preoccupied with anything. I have LOTS of time. In fact, I have a
year to sue, so there is no rush. I made no changes to the drive. So you
are saying that scandisk run from windows writes to the drive, changes
it even BEFORE it asks you to fix anything. I rather doubt that. The
other DR programs did nothing except start to scan the drive. The drive
has developed no further errors since I've done any of this. And, rest
assured I won't be using your program clonedisk. Apparently you are
unaware you have MANY competitors and people don't have to beg at your
web page to get a copy of clonedisk. Instead of trying to impress
everyone with you obtuse knowledge (or is mostly BS, I suspect) you
should concentrate on helping those at ResQ make their web page a little
easier to navigate and more competitive with other better pages selling
the same type of products. I think I understand your reasoning though.
It runs something like this: don't do anything to the drive until you
buy our product clonedisk.

 

[HaHaHooHooHeeHee]

Thanks for the warning. I know all about Rod. I see he is exercising
more restraint lately and I did find his information, while cryptic,
useful.

(e-mail address removed) (Bob) wrote in

 

[Rod Speed]

Some pathetically senile silly old redneck fart desperately cowering behind
Bob <[email protected]> desperately attempted to
bullshit its way out of its predicament in message
and fooled absolutely no one at all. As always.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Thanks to Folkert, J. Clark and Rod Speed for their informative replies.
Especially learned from Folkert and Clark's explanations. Good think I
have a lot of time to investigate all of this.

I will have to look up the ECC business, I think it has something to do
with the mfg. id?

Nope.

It's an Error Correction Code check that is performed on and recorded
with the sector data.
On a read an ECC is calculated for the data and compared with the ECC
that is recorded with the data. If they don't match or if the ECC can't
correct the data such that it returns the same ECC, then the sector is
considered bad.

Does anyone know if there are any other programs besides clonedisk and
drivepatch that attempt to recover bad sectors in DOS?

They do? Drives already do it themselves. What programs can do is
repeat a read themselves if it doesn't succeed a first time.

I've read reviews on diskpatch and they are mixed.

Doesn't surprise me one bit. The author has a habit of blowing up if you
make suggestions, taking it as criticism. That obviously limits that programs
ability to get better.

Netiv isn't much better and ignores/ridicules any suggestions.

Makers of clonedisk's web page is not very friendly-difficult/impossible
to dl a trial. Restorer2000 only works in Windoze.

I like the diskpatch feature of adjustable reads on bad sectors.

Does it do reads without ECC checks (Read Long)?
I.E. no retries at all, not even by the drive itself?

Oh well, here is an excerpt from the online manual:

" In case of bad sectors, often repairs can not be made on the original (bad) disk.
" If bad sectors exist in areas on the disk that contain disk structures, repairing
" these structures is going to be impossible

" because writing to bad sectors is impossible.

That is wrong.

" Cloning the bad disk to a good disk will give you a much better chance of repairing
" those damaged structures.

Maybe so but not for that reason.

" Be prepared for the fact that cloning a bad disk to a good disk can take a
" considerable amount of time.

And kiss the disk goodbye for that reason alone.

I think you might be able to do this with Spinrite also, but not sure. Zillions
of programs out there, but none seem superior to all the others.

" In case of bad sectors, often repairs can not be made on the original (bad) disk.
" If bad sectors exist in areas on the disk that contain disk structures, repairing
" these structures is going to be impossible

" because writing to bad sectors is impossible.

That is wrong.

" Cloning the bad disk to a good disk will give you a much better chance of repairing
" those damaged structures.

Maybe so but not for that reason.

" Be prepared for the fact that cloning a bad disk to a good disk can take a
" considerable amount of time.

And kiss the disk goodbye for that reason alone.

"HaHaHooHooHeeHee" (e-mail address removed)> wrote in message news:[email protected]

"Folkert Rienstra" (e-mail address removed)> wrote in "HaHaHoHoHeeHee" (e-mail address removed)> wrote in

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

[...]

Most files appear in explorer and are accessible, except that many
give "cannot access drive" errors.

Typical to a mapping (geometry) error.

Thanks, but that says little or nothing.

It depends to whom. What it means is that at some stage, the drive may have
worked with different settings in the BIOS, either translation mode or
parameters, resulting in a different CHS mapping.
The implications of such event reach far.

Only if the drive is accessed in CHS mode, and that software is using
CHS directly, without converting it to LBA first and then back to the
CHS translation in actual use. That is doubtful.

[...]
This anomaly suggests that a different BIOS translation mode may have been used
with the drive.

And what exactly in that behavior suggests that?

Well , Netiv?

The way to assure that SCANDISK fixes nothing is to launch it from command line,
preferably from true DOS, with the /CHECKONLY switch. The fact that SCANDISK
went as far as 95% of the drive suggests that this isn't how you ran SCANDISK.

The question was: What harm is running scandisk if no fixing is done?

[...]

What makes you assume this?

Experience, observing small details,

Or just your usual stop word: Something is wrong, therefore it's a bios problem.

and seeing how you made the wrong choices.

At first, you failed to assess the real cause to the problem

So where is *your* suggestion for assessment, Netiv?

(you have been preoccupied with blaming the technician, and then data
recovery software that aren't worth their salt), whether a corrupted
file system is the cause (what you call "logical errors"),

Actually he has still explained not what he calls "logical errors".
For all we know he may call that logical bad blocks.

or genuine bad sectors formed on your drive.

In the previous case (file system corruption), the course of action should have
been totally different. Unfortunately you already messed too far for DR
software to be able to recover your files.

That depends on how much of his unrecovered data is overwritten by incorrect
corrections. Those are likely to happen to the system area, not the data area.

As for the other possibility (bad sectors), you should have cloned the drive
immediately on realizing that bad sectors are at the source of the problem.

So what is it, Netiv, bad bios params or bad sectors?

Here too, you lost precious time, and what's worse, you let changes to the drive
that you aren't even aware of,

Which is not a problem if it is indeed bad sectors and not a translation difference.

and cloning the drive now may not be worth the effort.

Which has more to do with the quality of cloning programs including
your own, that can't read a bad sector without causing retries.