Opinions on hddregenerator?

[lexluther]

Anyone tried it? Your opinions on this program? Sounds similar to
Spinrite. Supposedly recovers data via smart algorithims, whatever that
means.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Anyone tried it? Your opinions on this program? Sounds similar to
Spinrite. Supposedly recovers data via smart algorithims, whatever that
means.

Probably means that it overwrites defect sectors, letting the disk
remap it.

As for recoveryng data from defect sectors, ECC corrections has hard
mathematical limits and the disk itself can allready get the best
possible result, no external software can do better.

Looks like snake-oil to me.

Arno

 

[Rod Speed]

Probably means that it overwrites defect
sectors, letting the disk remap it.

As for recoveryng data from defect sectors, ECC corrections
has hard mathematical limits and the disk itself can allready
get the best possible result, no external software can do better.

That last is just plain wrong. Most obviously with
repeated retrys and an attempt to compare what
is returned over multiple attempts at a read.

Looks like snake-oil to me.

Quite possibly, but that is a separate issue.

 

[lexluther]

Thanks to Arno and Rod for their replies. The reason for the post
was because I had read many opinions on hard drive forums swearing
this program works, not just promotional testimonies either, but
real users. Most claimed they had bad sector errors and that this
program recovered the data. Guess only way I will know is to try
it. I don't see any reason to clone the drive since if it is
dieing the clone process might kill it and the clone process does
nothing as far as I can determine to get data from bad sectors
(cuz it can't). Already got most of the data off it, so mainly
concerned with unreadable areas now.

 

[Arno Wagner]

That last is just plain wrong. Most obviously with
repeated retrys and an attempt to compare what
is returned over multiple attempts at a read.

This statement just shows you do not understand ECC. While repeated
retries do increase the chance of a successful read, they also do
increase the chance of a correction to the wrong value. This gets
worse because today soft-decision decoding is already done. Several
reads used to be a way of emulating soft-decision (gives you 1.5 dB
better signal quality), but those days are over for HDDs.

Arno

 

[Rod Speed]

This statement just shows you do not understand ECC.
Nope.

While repeated retries do increase the chance of a successful read,
they also do increase the chance of a correction to the wrong value.

Nope.

In spades when repeated reads eventually produce a successful read.

This gets worse because today soft-decision decoding is already done.
Nope.

Several reads used to be a way of emulating soft-decision (gives
you 1.5 dB better signal quality), but those days are over for HDDs.

Nope. And hard drives have always had ECC anyway in the PC era.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

This statement just shows you do not understand ECC.

But this blabbering about 'soft-decision decoding' shows that you do, right?

While repeated retries do increase the chance of a successful read,

Right, for sectors with magnetic flaws that can be read with correction
*if* you manage to hit them at the right spot.

they also do increase the chance of a correction to the wrong value.

You might want to look up the meaning of "chance".

And that's a chance within a chance, that's still much better than zip.

This gets worse because today soft-decision decoding is already done.

And that's to say what?

Several reads used to be a way of emulating soft-decision (gives you 1.5 dB
better signal quality),

And how does that make sense?