Seagate 300 gig IDE drive seen as unformatted

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Daniel Prince

I have a Seagate 300 gig IDE drive (not SATA) that I have been using
as a data drive. Windows XP Home SP3 now says that the drive is
unformatted. When I run the Seagate DiscWizard program it says that
sector 92 is unreadable.

I have a lot of data on the drive that I have not backed up. I
suspect that most of the data is still there but just not accessible
through Windows. Is there a good freeware or shareware program that
I can use to access my data? Thank you in advance for all replies.
 
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Daniel Prince said:
I have a Seagate 300 gig IDE drive (not SATA) that I have been using
as a data drive. Windows XP Home SP3 now says that the drive is
unformatted. When I run the Seagate DiscWizard program it says that
sector 92 is unreadable.
Click to expand...
I have a lot of data on the drive that I have not backed up. I
suspect that most of the data is still there but just not accessible
through Windows. Is there a good freeware or shareware program that
I can use to access my data? Thank you in advance for all replies.
Click to expand...

First, make a sector image to a different drive. Then work on that.
The risk of doing more damage when working on the only copy is
high.

Side note: Data you have only one copy of, you could as well have
no copy of.

Arno
 
From: "Daniel Prince" <[email protected]>

| I have a Seagate 300 gig IDE drive (not SATA) that I have been using
| as a data drive. Windows XP Home SP3 now says that the drive is
| unformatted. When I run the Seagate DiscWizard program it says that
| sector 92 is unreadable.

| I have a lot of data on the drive that I have not backed up. I
| suspect that most of the data is still there but just not accessible
| through Windows. Is there a good freeware or shareware program that
| I can use to access my data? Thank you in advance for all replies.


Did you run SeaGate SeaTools on it ?
 
neutrino1 said:
I have a Seagate 300 gig IDE drive (not SATA) that I have been using
as a data drive. Windows XP Home SP3 now says that the drive is
unformatted. When I run the Seagate DiscWizard program it says that
sector 92 is unreadable.

I have a lot of data on the drive that I have not backed up. I
suspect that most of the data is still there but just not accessible
through Windows. Is there a good freeware or shareware program that
I can use to access my data? Thank you in advance for all replies.
Click to expand...

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

Ideally, run the testdisk program from the location you want to save
your files (ie a removable drive, or another disk drive) - as that's
where it'll save everything.

From the sounds of it, TestDisk will get all your data back, perhaps
less a file or two from the damaged area.
 
Daniel Prince wrote
I have a Seagate 300 gig IDE drive (not SATA) that I have
been using as a data drive. Windows XP Home SP3 now
says that the drive is unformatted. When I run the Seagate
DiscWizard program it says that sector 92 is unreadable.
Click to expand...
I have a lot of data on the drive that I have not backed up.
I suspect that most of the data is still there but just not
accessible through Windows. Is there a good freeware
or shareware program that I can use to access my data?
Click to expand...

You dont say how it was formatted. If it was formatted
NTFS, you can find that a Linux live CD can see the data
on the drive when Win claims that its unformatted.

If that doesnt work, I like Easy Recovery Pro
myself, but it isnt free unless you steal it.
 
Daniel said:
I have a Seagate 300 gig IDE drive (not SATA) that I have been using
as a data drive. Windows XP Home SP3 now says that the drive is
unformatted. When I run the Seagate DiscWizard program it says that
sector 92 is unreadable.

I have a lot of data on the drive that I have not backed up. I
suspect that most of the data is still there but just not accessible
through Windows. Is there a good freeware or shareware program that
I can use to access my data? Thank you in advance for all replies.
Click to expand...

Use a Live Linux CD to boot up the Computer and see if you can see the
drive. If you can then you should be able to copy the files to a DVD
using the burner on the live linux CD.

I have done this once for a friend in desparate need of her Tax data,
and was surprised just how easy it was to do.

I used Knopix version 3.6 which I still cary around in my software toolkit.

MAKE BACKUPS IF ALL YOUR DATA - even the data on your Memory stick.

I lost data (a lot of notes) when my Corsair Memory stick failed. I got
a new one under its 3 year warranty but that did not replace the notes I
lost.

Maurice helwig
 
I have a lot of data on the drive that I have not backed up. I
suspect that most of the data is still there but just not accessible
through Windows. Is there a good freeware or shareware program that
I can use to access my data? Thank you in advance for all replies.
Click to expand...

Is it still accessible? Back up IMMEDIATELY!


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Rod Speed said:
Daniel Prince wrote



You dont say how it was formatted. If it was formatted
NTFS, you can find that a Linux live CD can see the data
on the drive when Win claims that its unformatted.
Click to expand...

It was formatted NTFS. Which version of Linux live CD do you
recommend?
 
Daniel Prince said:
It was formatted NTFS. Which version of Linux live CD do you
recommend?
Click to expand...

You can use PartedMagic for your purpose. "Linux based harddisk
partition program with a partition image backup, file copier and
CD/DVD burner program." PartedMagic is good to have anyway.
http://partedmagic.com/

(see also posting below, alt.comp.freeware)

Yrrah
 
Daniel Prince wrote
It was formatted NTFS. Which version of Linux live CD do you recommend?
Click to expand...

Doesnt really matter. Ubuntu is pretty intuitive for those
who have never used Linux before because it does
things the same way Win does most of the time.
 
David H. Lipman said:
From: "Daniel Prince" <[email protected]>



| It was formatted NTFS. Which version of Linux live CD do you
| recommend?

Did you run SeaGate SeaTools like I asked ?
Click to expand...

Yes. I downloaded and ran SeaTools. This is what it said:

Model: ST3300831A
Serial Number: (deleted)
Firmware Revision: 3.01
SMART - FAIL 3/21/2010 1:18:43 AM
Short DST - Started 3/21/2010 1:19:07 AM
Short DST - FAIL 3/21/2010 1:19:23 AM
Long DST - Started 3/21/2010 1:19:32 AM
Long DST - FAIL 3/21/2010 1:20:58 AM
Identify - Started 3/21/2010 3:52:53 AM
SMART: Supported and enabled
48-bit Address feature set supported: True
Max LBA: 586072368
Host Protected Area features: Supported and enabled
Mandatory Power Management: Supported and enabled
Security Mode: Supported not enabled
SET MAX security extension: Supported not enabled
Advanced Power Managment: Not Supported
Download Firmware: False
SMART self-test supported: True
SMART error logging supported: True
Drive Temperature(C/F): 27/81
Power-On Hours: 363159
 
From: "Daniel Prince" <[email protected]>


| Yes. I downloaded and ran SeaTools. This is what it said:

| Model: ST3300831A
| Serial Number: (deleted)
| Firmware Revision: 3.01
| SMART - FAIL 3/21/2010 1:18:43 AM
| Short DST - Started 3/21/2010 1:19:07 AM
| Short DST - FAIL 3/21/2010 1:19:23 AM
| Long DST - Started 3/21/2010 1:19:32 AM
| Long DST - FAIL 3/21/2010 1:20:58 AM
| Identify - Started 3/21/2010 3:52:53 AM
| SMART: Supported and enabled
| 48-bit Address feature set supported: True
| Max LBA: 586072368
| Host Protected Area features: Supported and enabled
| Mandatory Power Management: Supported and enabled
| Security Mode: Supported not enabled
| SET MAX security extension: Supported not enabled
| Advanced Power Managment: Not Supported
| Download Firmware: False
| SMART self-test supported: True
| SMART error logging supported: True
| Drive Temperature(C/F): 27/81
| Power-On Hours: 363159

That's not exactly what I meant. Sorry.

The objective is to run a full, comprehensive, test of the drive such that you will know
its condition and maybe fix bad sectors. At the end it will either indicate it is healthy
or errors with an error message.

But at least I now know that this is a .3TB IDE hard disk.
 
UBCD4Win is a bootable recovery CD that contains software used for
repairing, restoring, or diagnosing almost any computer problem. The CD is
easy and fairly quick to build, but you need a XP CD.
http://www.ubcd4win.com/
It was formatted NTFS. Which version of Linux live CD do you
recommend?
Click to expand...
<snip>
I've successfully used Knoppix three times on various computers.
 
David H. Lipman said:
That's not exactly what I meant. Sorry.

The objective is to run a full, comprehensive, test of the drive such that you will know
its condition and maybe fix bad sectors. At the end it will either indicate it is healthy
or errors with an error message.
Click to expand...

I do not see a full, comprehensive, test listed in any of the tests
available in SeaTools. Where do I find them?
 
From: "Daniel Prince" <[email protected]>


| I do not see a full, comprehensive, test listed in any of the tests
| available in SeaTools. Where do I find them?


Since I don't have a SeaTools Boot Disk avaiable, I can't reference it. However there is
a short test anda longer more comprehensive test. Choose the latter.
 
I have a Seagate 300 gig IDE drive (not SATA) that I have been using
as a data drive.  Windows XP Home SP3 now says that the drive is
unformatted.  When I run the Seagate DiscWizard program it says that
sector 92 is unreadable.

I have a lot of data on the drive that I have not backed up.  I
suspect that most of the data is still there but just not accessible
through Windows.  Is there a good freeware or shareware program that
I can use to access my data?  Thank you in advance for all replies.
Click to expand...

As far as freeware goes, I have no idea of a solution, but Steve
Gibsons Spinrite can recover damaged sectors if they can be recovered
at all.
 
As far as freeware goes, I have no idea of a solution, but Steve
Gibsons Spinrite can recover damaged sectors if they can be recovered
at all.
Click to expand...

As can the HDD entirely by itself. Don't waste money on
historical technology. Incidentially, if the HDD needs
hardware repair, SpinRite does not help either.

Arno
 
From: "Arno" <[email protected]>


| As can the HDD entirely by itself. Don't waste money on
| historical technology. Incidentially, if the HDD needs
| hardware repair, SpinRite does not help either.

| Arno

SeaGate SeaTools can or at least indicate if it is bad.
 
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