SATA II broken drive

[Jem 2]

Hi guys,

Apologies if this isn't the right place to ask this, but I need help with my
broken 500GB drive. It is partitioned into 2 and the first partition
clicks. When I did manage to access the drive using a Ubuntu memory stick
the second partition seemed to read perfectly without clicking, etc. I
thought I had copied the important bits to a new HDD, but have just realised
I forgot to move my email as well.

I have since tried to access the drive both by plugging it it directly or
via a SATA to USB bridge. The BIOS detects the drive without problems but I
can't access anything. It has appeared in the device list, but never gives
me any drive letters and doesn't seem to come up in the 'manage' options
either.

Am I totally sunk? Is there anything that will enable me to access the 2nd
(working?) partition?

I would be grateful for any help you can offer.

many thanks

Jem

 

[Rod Speed]

Jem 2 wrote

Apologies if this isn't the right place to ask this,

It is the right place to ask.

but I need help with my broken 500GB drive. It is partitioned into 2 and the first partition clicks.

The clicks are the drive recalibrating when it cant read some of the tracks.

When I did manage to access the drive using a Ubuntu memory stick the second partition seemed to read perfectly
without clicking, etc. I thought I had copied the important bits to a new HDD, but have just realised I forgot to move
my email as well.

I have since tried to access the drive both by plugging it it
directly or via a SATA to USB bridge. The BIOS detects the drive without problems but I can't access anything. It has
appeared in the device list, but never gives me any drive letters and doesn't seem to come up in the 'manage' options
either.

Likely its now died completely if it isnt visible in the config where
you used a Ubuntu stick to copy the data off the second partition.

I'd certainly go back to that config again, Ubuntu is less
fussy about what it sees, particularly with NTFS partitions.

Am I totally sunk?

Not unless its not visible with Ubuntu in the config where it once was.

Even then professional recovery may be possible.

Is there anything that will enable me to access the 2nd (working?) partition?

You could try putting it in a plastic bag in the freezer and see if you
can see it with the Ubuntu stick when straight out of the freezer.

You can get dry joints or a cracked trace that produces symptoms like that and
the freezer approach can make it visible for long enough to get the emails off it.

I would be grateful for any help you can offer.

 

[Arno]

Hi guys,

Apologies if this isn't the right place to ask this, but I need help with my
broken 500GB drive. It is partitioned into 2 and the first partition
clicks.

What do you mean? A partition cannot "click", only a drive can.

When I did manage to access the drive using a Ubuntu memory stick
the second partition seemed to read perfectly without clicking, etc. I
thought I had copied the important bits to a new HDD, but have just realised
I forgot to move my email as well.

Aha, an area within the first partition has recalibrations.

I have since tried to access the drive both by plugging it it directly or
via a SATA to USB bridge. The BIOS detects the drive without problems but I
can't access anything. It has appeared in the device list, but never gives
me any drive letters and doesn't seem to come up in the 'manage' options
either.

Am I totally sunk? Is there anything that will enable me to access the 2nd
(working?) partition?

Not likely. Looks like the drive was dying. You ran it and used
up the remaining time it had.

I would be grateful for any help you can offer.

Looks like a case for professional data recovery (expensive) and
doing a proper backup next time. Sorry.

You can post the full smart attributes here (smartctl -d ata -a <dev>),
maybe shis will give further insight, but I doubt it will help much.

Arno

 

[Franc Zabkar]

Apologies if this isn't the right place to ask this, but I need help with my
broken 500GB drive. It is partitioned into 2 and the first partition
clicks.

Is it a Seagate 7200.11 or 7200.12 drive?

When I did manage to access the drive using a Ubuntu memory stick
the second partition seemed to read perfectly without clicking, etc. I
thought I had copied the important bits to a new HDD, but have just realised
I forgot to move my email as well.

I have since tried to access the drive both by plugging it it directly or
via a SATA to USB bridge. The BIOS detects the drive without problems but I
can't access anything. It has appeared in the device list, but never gives
me any drive letters and doesn't seem to come up in the 'manage' options
either.

Am I totally sunk? Is there anything that will enable me to access the 2nd
(working?) partition?

I would be grateful for any help you can offer.

many thanks

Jem

Clone as much of the bad drive as you can to a new drive and then use
a data recovery utility such as GetDataBack or Linux ddrescue.

- Franc Zabkar

 

[Jem 2]

Is it a Seagate 7200.11 or 7200.12 drive?


Clone as much of the bad drive as you can to a new drive and then use
a data recovery utility such as GetDataBack or Linux ddrescue.

- Franc Zabkar

Thanks guys for all the responses. Doesn't sound good. I know it is my
fault. I don't think it is worth employing professional recovery services,
but I'm a bit miffed about my email. I thought I had grabbed the important
stuff.

It is a Samsung 7200 drive. I believe they offer a 3 year warranty. It is
safe to return a drive to them which may contain private data (account
numbers etc)? I admit that I am very tempted to try the freezer trick, but
will that mean that Samsung don't honour the warranty?

Cheers

Jem

 

[Arno]

Thanks guys for all the responses. Doesn't sound good. I know it is my
fault. I don't think it is worth employing professional recovery services,
but I'm a bit miffed about my email. I thought I had grabbed the important
stuff.

Well, it happens to everybody now and again.

It is a Samsung 7200 drive. I believe they offer a 3 year warranty. It is
safe to return a drive to them which may contain private data (account
numbers etc)? I admit that I am very tempted to try the freezer trick, but
will that mean that Samsung don't honour the warranty?

They cannot tell. If your data is not worth recovering professionally,
then you can mess with the drive. At the current low cost of these,
it is probably not even worthwhile to pay one-way shipping to get
a replacement.

As to the freezer trick, what it does is shift all operating
parameters slighly in the other direction than warming it
up (or just runnign it and let it self-heat) does. Sometimes
this gives you a few extra minutes of operation or even more,
especially it the problem is with start-up. But be quick,
the drive warms fast and may then fail again.

As to the confidential data, I would not send it back unerased.
The price of the drive is too low and the potential damage is
to great for it to be worthwhile IMO. That is one main reason to
encrypt such information.

Arno

 

[Jem 2]

Well, it happens to everybody now and again.


They cannot tell. If your data is not worth recovering professionally,
then you can mess with the drive. At the current low cost of these,
it is probably not even worthwhile to pay one-way shipping to get
a replacement.

As to the freezer trick, what it does is shift all operating
parameters slighly in the other direction than warming it
up (or just runnign it and let it self-heat) does. Sometimes
this gives you a few extra minutes of operation or even more,
especially it the problem is with start-up. But be quick,
the drive warms fast and may then fail again.

As to the confidential data, I would not send it back unerased.
The price of the drive is too low and the potential damage is
to great for it to be worthwhile IMO. That is one main reason to
encrypt such information.

Arno

You've all been extremely helpful. Thank you. I'm sure you are right about
it not being worth sending back. I have already replaced it with a 1TB
version anyway, but the thought of getting a new drive out of my misery
seems too good to pass up. LOL. Greed, eh? I shall give the freezer thing
a whirl and go from there.

Thanks again to you all!

Jem

 

[Rod Speed]

Thanks guys for all the responses. Doesn't sound good. I know it is
my fault. I don't think it is worth employing professional recovery
services, but I'm a bit miffed about my email. I thought I had
grabbed the important stuff.

It is a Samsung 7200 drive. I believe they offer a 3 year warranty. It is safe to return a drive to them which may
contain private data
(account numbers etc)?

Pretty safe. There is a small possibility that they might just be
stupid enough to repair it if the fault is something trivial like the
logic card has died and not erase it properly and ship it to someone
else for a warranty replacement, but the risk is microscopic.

I admit that I am very tempted to try the freezer trick, but will that mean that Samsung don't honour the warranty?

They shouldnt be able to work out that you have done that
if you do it carefully with the drive in an antistatic bag etc.

 

[Rod Speed]

I keep sensitive data with a long Blowfish encrypted
pass phrase like "I'm going 2 etc etc" which has UC, LC,
numeric and punctuation chars.
How can Samsung determine that it has been frozen?
If it is not powered up nothing can be written that
records its minimum temperature.

But the whole point of freezing it is to use it very
cold to try to get the data off it, so it can in theory
record that very low temp when you are trying that.

But samsungs dont record max and min temps anyway.

I think drive mfrs expect a percentage of
returns, and just chuck dead drives into a skip.

If they do, there is a small possibility of someone
getting it out of there and recovering the drive etc.

Most drive mfrs test utilities run from a floppy, so
if BIOS sees the drive you can run the test. Having
the test result written to a text file helps get an
RMA. But you should be able to get an RMA
for an in warranty dead drive. Beware of the trap
that some shiddy mfrs say that as it's an
OEM drive you have to return it via the system
vendor. (who doesn't want to know)

They cant get away with that last in countrys with decent consumer law.

 

[Rod Speed]

Well, it happens to everybody now and again.


They cannot tell. If your data is not worth recovering professionally,
then you can mess with the drive. At the current low cost of these,
it is probably not even worthwhile to pay one-way shipping to get
a replacement.

As to the freezer trick, what it does is shift all operating
parameters slighly in the other direction than warming it
up (or just runnign it and let it self-heat) does. Sometimes
this gives you a few extra minutes of operation or even more,
especially it the problem is with start-up. But be quick,
the drive warms fast and may then fail again.

As to the confidential data, I would not send it back unerased.
The price of the drive is too low and the potential damage is
to great for it to be worthwhile IMO. That is one main reason to
encrypt such information.

Corse you can always just change the PINs etc.

 

[Rod Speed]

Ato_Zee wrote

They just stall and give you the run around with expesive national rate calls.

Anyone with even half a clue uses voip so that cant fly.

I ended up having to file a court action against a national retail
chain and a multi-national company. That changed their tune.

Yep, and even just threatening that is usually enough.

One operation was actually stupid enough to have the CEO's name
on their web site and I just rang him up and monstered him that way.

Their tame barrister gave me their latest
product, paid my costs to withdraw the action
and settle out of court, and an acceptable
sum for my time trouble and inconvenience.

Yeah, its easy enough if you know what you are doing.

I even did it with a pair of boots that were 30 years old, which I didnt get
around to wearing because the soles were too knobby and picked up mud.