Help me keep this drive working long enough to rescue data from it...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Brian Kendig
  • Start date Start date
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Brian Kendig

I've got a Seagate ST3200822AS SATA drive in an HP Media Center PC
m1170n. The drive's controller is ailing - when the drive works it
works slowly, but after it's in use for one or two minutes it suddenly
disappears from the bus, and the PC can no longer detect it (not even
in the BIOS menus) until I power off / power on. I've tried this drive
in two different PCs, and it has the same symptoms in each.

It's infuriating to have it work long enough for me to see the contents
of the drive, but not long enough for me to copy them off...

What's especially maddening is that when I boot from the SeaTools
(Seagate diagnostics) CD, it analyzes the drive for an hour or more,
and the drive remains online throughout. So I know the drive is capable
of working; I just don't know why it works for the diagnostics but not
for me!

I've tried setting PIO and DMA to their lowest settings, in the hopes
that maybe slowing down the data transfer rate would keep the drive
from going offline, but that hasn't worked.

I could use some ideas on this. Anyone have any suggestions on things I
could try to nurse the drive along long enough to pull data off it?
 
Not wishing to be a PITA, but this is really a question for Seagate tech
support. They understand their drives' electronics better than anyone
and are in the best position to help you. If you don't want to deal with
Seagate for whatever reason, bring your PC to someone who really knows
their business (not the geek behind the counter at Best Buy.)
 
Ted said:
Not wishing to be a PITA, but this is really a question for Seagate tech
support. They understand their drives' electronics better than anyone
and are in the best position to help you. If you don't want to deal with
Seagate for whatever reason, bring your PC to someone who really knows
their business (not the geek behind the counter at Best Buy.)
Click to expand...

Seagate tech support told me: "The drive is bad. Call the OEM to see
about warranty replacement."

I've been in the PC repair business for a long time, but I don't deal
with data rescue very often. I haven't had any luck with this drive,
and I'm hoping maybe someone will have an idea for something I haven't
tried. The only alternatives are to send it off to a data recovery firm
or to give up on it.
 
Brian Kendig wrote:

Seagate tech support told me: "The drive is bad. Call the OEM to see
about warranty replacement."
Click to expand...

Yea, it's an OEM drive, sorry; seagate won't help you out with it.
I've been in the PC repair business for a long time, but I don't deal
with data rescue very often. I haven't had any luck with this drive,
and I'm hoping maybe someone will have an idea for something I haven't
tried. The only alternatives are to send it off to a data recovery firm
or to give up on it.
Click to expand...

Do you have another drive identical to it? Or access to one? You might
try swapping the controller board on the drive. it's either the
controller board is going south, or the spindle motor is.
 
[email protected] said:
Do you have another drive identical to it? Or access to one? You might
try swapping the controller board on the drive. it's either the
controller board is going south, or the spindle motor is.
Click to expand...

I don't have an identical drive, but in general, does this work? I've
thought about doing something like this, but I haven't wanted to risk
it. How identical do the drives have to be - same exact model number,
or is the same product family good enough? What's the risk that the
good controller board I swap in could also end up damaged by the
procedure?
 
Subject: Re: Help me keep this drive working long enough to rescue data from it...
From: (e-mail address removed)
Newsgroups: 24hoursupport.helpdesk,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware
Date: 19 Jul 2006 10:01:50 -0700


Brian Kendig wrote:



Yea, it's an OEM drive, sorry; seagate won't help you out with it.


Do you have another drive identical to it? Or access to one? You might try
swapping the controller board on the drive. it's either the controller
board is going south, or the spindle motor is.
Click to expand...

Or the OP could run the fixall Bughunter on it.
 
Meat said:
Or the OP could run the fixall Bughunter on it.
Click to expand...

<chokes on laughter>

rl
--
Rhonda Lea Kirk

If you ever need some proof that time can heal your wounds,
just step inside my heart and walk around these rooms;
where the shadows used to be.... Mary Chapin Carpenter
 
Brian Kendig "contributed" in 24hoursupport.helpdesk:
I've got a Seagate ST3200822AS SATA drive in an HP Media Center PC
m1170n. The drive's controller is ailing - when the drive works it
works slowly, but after it's in use for one or two minutes it suddenly
disappears from the bus, and the PC can no longer detect it (not even
in the BIOS menus) until I power off / power on. I've tried this drive
in two different PCs, and it has the same symptoms in each.

It's infuriating to have it work long enough for me to see the contents
of the drive, but not long enough for me to copy them off...

What's especially maddening is that when I boot from the SeaTools
(Seagate diagnostics) CD, it analyzes the drive for an hour or more,
and the drive remains online throughout. So I know the drive is capable
of working; I just don't know why it works for the diagnostics but not
for me!

I've tried setting PIO and DMA to their lowest settings, in the hopes
that maybe slowing down the data transfer rate would keep the drive
from going offline, but that hasn't worked.

I could use some ideas on this. Anyone have any suggestions on things I
could try to nurse the drive along long enough to pull data off it?
Click to expand...

Not joking here: freeze the drive (literally, in the refridgetrator!) and
connect it while ice-cold. Wrap in a few plastic bags before you put it
in the fridge. I read this in a NG once and some months ago I came across
a drive with the same symptoms. I tried it (I didn't care if the drive
would die completely, as I always have several working backups) and
amazingly, yes, I could retrieve the data from it.
 
Brian Kendig said:
I've got a Seagate ST3200822AS SATA drive in an HP Media Center
PC m1170n. The drive's controller is ailing - when the drive works it
works slowly, but after it's in use for one or two minutes it suddenly
disappears from the bus, and the PC can no longer detect it (not even
in the BIOS menus) until I power off / power on. I've tried this drive
in two different PCs, and it has the same symptoms in each.
Click to expand...
It's infuriating to have it work long enough for me to see the
contents of the drive, but not long enough for me to copy them off...
Click to expand...
What's especially maddening is that when I boot from the
SeaTools (Seagate diagnostics) CD, it analyzes the drive
for an hour or more, and the drive remains online throughout.
Click to expand...

What does it say about the health of the drive ?
Presumably its saying that the drive has problems ?
So I know the drive is capable of working; I just don't
know why it works for the diagnostics but not for me!
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's certainly unusual.
I've tried setting PIO and DMA to their lowest settings, in the
hopes that maybe slowing down the data transfer rate would
keep the drive from going offline, but that hasn't worked.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'd have been surprised if that would have helped.
I could use some ideas on this. Anyone have any suggestions on things
I could try to nurse the drive along long enough to pull data off it?
Click to expand...

Try a knoppix bootable CD and see if it stays
up long enough to get the data off with that.

Its possible its a heat sensitive fault, so putting the drive in the
freezer in a plastic bag might see the drive stay cool enough
for long enough to get the most important data off the drive.

I'd also try the drive in a different system, as a secondary drive
to see if its actually the drive itself and not something else.
 
Rod said:
What does it say about the health of the drive ?
Presumably its saying that the drive has problems ?
Click to expand...

Surprisingly, no SMART alerts, even though SMART is enabled on both
systems in which I've tried it.
Try a knoppix bootable CD and see if it stays
up long enough to get the data off with that.
Click to expand...

I've tried it with the Ubuntu 6.06 boot CD and had the same results,
where the drive disappears from the bus after a minute or two. I'll try
Knoppix, but I don't expect different results.
I'd also try the drive in a different system, as a secondary drive
to see if its actually the drive itself and not something else.
Click to expand...

Tried that; it's definitely the drive itself.
Its possible its a heat sensitive fault, so putting the drive in the
freezer in a plastic bag might see the drive stay cool enough
for long enough to get the most important data off the drive.
Click to expand...

That's my next step, as soon as I'm ready to move the data off the
drive quickly if it works.

Thanks for the ideas!
 
|>I've got a Seagate ST3200822AS SATA drive in an HP Media Center PC
|>m1170n. The drive's controller is ailing - when the drive works it
|>works slowly, but after it's in use for one or two minutes it suddenly
|>disappears from the bus, and the PC can no longer detect it (not even
|>in the BIOS menus) until I power off / power on. I've tried this drive
|>in two different PCs, and it has the same symptoms in each.

Seems heat related, the circuit board heats up and something
disconnects.

In the same vein as John Holmes, might use a can of air (what you
remove dust with) and spray it on the circuit board to cool it down.
grab what you want if it work.

While I've never seen this work on a hard drive or had the chance to.
I've seen a modem made to work this way, errors would start to show up
a shot of air on the chips and it would work fine for a while.
 
|>I've got a Seagate ST3200822AS SATA drive in an HP Media Center PC
|>m1170n. The drive's controller is ailing - when the drive works it
|>works slowly, but after it's in use for one or two minutes it suddenly
|>disappears from the bus, and the PC can no longer detect it (not even
|>in the BIOS menus) until I power off / power on. I've tried this drive
|>in two different PCs, and it has the same symptoms in each.

Seems heat related, the circuit board heats up and something
disconnects.

In the same vein as John Holmes, might use a can of air (what you
remove dust with) and spray it on the circuit board to cool it down.
grab what you want if it work.

While I've never seen this work on a hard drive or had the chance to.
I've seen a modem made to work this way, errors would start to show up
a shot of air on the chips and it would work fine for a while.
Click to expand...

You can put a HD in a freezer and it will sometimes work just one last
time to get data off. This does scrap it completely though when it
warms up again. It reduces the head gap and restores some readability
for a short time.
 
Hey, a related question: I understand that SATA allows hot-swapping.
Does this mean that, while the PC is booted and running, I can pull the
power cable from the SATA drive then connect it again to cycle power on
the drive, without risking harm to the computer's motherboard?

I know this is ordinarily bad because it doesn't give the drive a
chance to flush its buffers and park itself, but if I can cycle power
this way, it'll let me continue to try to read data from the drive
without requiring a hard reboot every time the drive stops responding.
 
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Brian Kendig said:
I've got a Seagate ST3200822AS SATA drive in an HP Media Center PC
m1170n. The drive's controller is ailing - when the drive works it
works slowly, but after it's in use for one or two minutes it suddenly
disappears from the bus, and the PC can no longer detect it (not even
in the BIOS menus) until I power off / power on. I've tried this drive
in two different PCs, and it has the same symptoms in each.
Click to expand...
It's infuriating to have it work long enough for me to see the contents
of the drive, but not long enough for me to copy them off...
Click to expand...
What's especially maddening is that when I boot from the SeaTools
(Seagate diagnostics) CD, it analyzes the drive for an hour or more,
and the drive remains online throughout. So I know the drive is capable
of working; I just don't know why it works for the diagnostics but not
for me!
Click to expand...

Seatools does a long SMART selftest. During the test there is basically
no bus activity. Not too surptising it remains
online.
I've tried setting PIO and DMA to their lowest settings, in the hopes
that maybe slowing down the data transfer rate would keep the drive
from going offline, but that hasn't worked.
Click to expand...
I could use some ideas on this. Anyone have any suggestions on things I
could try to nurse the drive along long enough to pull data off it?
Click to expand...

What about hot (un-)plugging it? Then a series of minutes could be
enough. Depends on what exactly you want to pull off it...

Arno
 
|>Hey, a related question: I understand that SATA allows hot-swapping.
|>Does this mean that, while the PC is booted and running, I can pull the
|>power cable from the SATA drive then connect it again to cycle power on
|>the drive, without risking harm to the computer's motherboard?

Donno, I've done it with SCSI drives tho, if one wouldn't work you
boot up with one, then swap it with a bad one, it would usually work

|>I know this is ordinarily bad because it doesn't give the drive a
|>chance to flush its buffers and park itself, but if I can cycle power
|>this way, it'll let me continue to try to read data from the drive
|>without requiring a hard reboot every time the drive stops responding.

I ran into a drive like your having problems with but a SCSI, you
could set it up, format it and use it until you shut off the power,
once the power was off, it forgot what it was and you need'd to do it
all over again -

Your's seems to forget what it is while power is supplied, so it does
seem to be heat related.
 
Brian Kendig said:
Rod Speed wrote
Click to expand...
Surprisingly, no SMART alerts, even though SMART
is enabled on both systems in which I've tried it.
Click to expand...

I meant can you run the diagnostics repeatedly
with the drive always visible to the diagnostic ?
I've tried it with the Ubuntu 6.06 boot CD and had the same
results, where the drive disappears from the bus after a minute
or two. I'll try Knoppix, but I don't expect different results.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I wouldnt expect to see different results either.
Tried that; it's definitely the drive itself.
Click to expand...
That's my next step, as soon as I'm ready to
move the data off the drive quickly if it works.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the ideas!
Click to expand...

No problem.
 
|>[email protected] wrote:
|>> Do you have another drive identical to it? Or access to one? You might
|>> try swapping the controller board on the drive. it's either the
|>> controller board is going south, or the spindle motor is.

|>I don't have an identical drive, but in general, does this work? I've
|>thought about doing something like this, but I haven't wanted to risk
|>it. How identical do the drives have to be - same exact model number,
|>or is the same product family good enough? What's the risk that the
|>good controller board I swap in could also end up damaged by the
|>procedure?

It works, I change an almost identical board to a bad drive and it
fix'd it right up. Grab'd what I want'd the put the board back on the
good drive, no problem.

the original was something like sd5556
and the swap was like sd5556a
 
Brian Kendig said:
Hey, a related question: I understand that SATA allows hot-swapping.
Click to expand...

Yes, but that depends on the controller too.
Does this mean that, while the PC is booted and running, I can pull
the power cable from the SATA drive then connect it again to cycle
power on the drive, without risking harm to the computer's motherboard?
Click to expand...

Yes. But thats only with the SATA power connector,
some drives also have a traditional molex power
connector too and it isnt safe to hot plug that one.

The sata power connector connects the pins in the right order, ground first.
I know this is ordinarily bad because it doesn't give the drive a
chance to flush its buffers and park itself, but if I can cycle power
this way, it'll let me continue to try to read data from the drive
without requiring a hard reboot every time the drive stops responding.
Click to expand...

I doubt it will help, more likely the drive is heat sensitive, its going offline
when it warms up. Sounds like thats happening too fast for it to be
practical to keep unplugging and replugging while you get the data off.
 
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