HD won't stay connected...

[GeeksInKhakis]

Customer brought in 2 HDs and 1 dead laptop to transfer data from and consolidate onto new external HD. Drive #1 and laptop HD are fine, problem is with Drive #2 (now known as Dead-HD). The Dead-HD is a Seagate SATA 360GB drive that was in an USB enclosure. It would not show in the enclosure, so I figured the enclosure might be bad and pulled the drive and connected it directly.

All seemed OK, the Dead-HD showed up in the OS and I started to copy files off of it (using an XCopy script - fwiw). About a minute or so into the copy job it started spitting out CRC errors and skipped through a few of those and then froze completely. Drive started making a 'whiring' noise. I powered things down and now the Dead-HD appears to be 'really dead', with a few exceptions.

If I plug the drive in with an USB / SATA portable cable setup, the drive will show up and I can view it in My Computer and access the file structure using DIR in a CMD window. As soon as I start to access the files, however, the drive will disappear (although it's still powered). I've tried...

1. running chkdsk on it, got to 10% of stage 4/5 and froze / disappeared.
2. backing it up using Acronis plugged directly into MB and USB, won't see the drive
3. backing it up using EaseUS - same as Acronis
4. mounting it from UBUNTU boot CD as USB drive, acts the same as Windows, sees the drive and then if I try to copy / access a file it disappears
5. Windows XP, Vista, SAFE mode - all act the same

Does anyone have any suggestions to try and get at the data?

 

[Boston Pro Comp Serv LLC]

Sounds like it needs to go for a clean room repair in order to operate enough to copy anything from it.

 

[othersteve]

Doubtful it needs a clean room, just a DeepSpar. If you think you might want to have me try and image it let me know and maybe we can work something out.

Edit: It probably goes without saying that the more you try to access it using any other method, the greater the chance it will completely fail, and then it will need a clean room!

 

[othersteve]

Also, for future reference, chkdsk is the single worst thing you can do to a failing drive.

Let me know if you need any help on this!

 

[GeeksInKhakis]

Doubtful it needs a clean room, just a DeepSpar. If you think you might want to have me try and image it let me know and maybe we can work something out.

Edit: It probably goes without saying that the more you try to access it using any other method, the greater the chance it will completely fail, and then it will need a clean room!

I'm not familiar with DeepSpar.

I can get to it for about 2 min at a time through Ubuntu. I did this 4 or 5 times and was able to copy about 300 pics this way in small groups. If I try to pull a pic that mighr be in a damaged area, that seems to cause it to disappear faster.

Do you think this will cause further issues, with this method? I have probably about 1,000 pics left to copy.

The customer doesn't want to spend for clean room and I'm not super busy, so the time is not too much of an issue.

 

[GeeksInKhakis]

Also, for future reference, chkdsk is the single worst thing you can do to a failing drive.

Let me know if you need any help on this!

Yeah. I'm heard that before, but I've also had it fix many problems, so what is the best tool to use?

 

[GeeksInKhakis]

Doubtful it needs a clean room, just a DeepSpar. If you think you might want to have me try and image it let me know and maybe we can work something out.

Edit: It probably goes without saying that the more you try to access it using any other method, the greater the chance it will completely fail, and then it will need a clean room!

Pm sent re: cost. Filler added

 

[lcoughey]

DeepSpar Imager could certainly help, but if I were a betting man, this drive probably has a head issue which very likely will need to be changed before the entire drive can be mirrored. The damage caused by chkdsk cannot be undone, so the best that any lab can do is recover the data from the drive in its current state.

Every time this drive is powered on and it fails, more damage is being done. So, I seriously recommend stopping any further action until you decide your next step.

If this is a one-off case, I don't suggest you go out and spend $3500 on a new DDI system. Rather, find someone who has one who can help. If I'm right about the heads, you will need that someone to have the facilities to deal with that too, assuming that the data is worth the recovery prices.

Luke

 

[anonymous Mac Tech]

Also, for future reference, chkdsk is the single worst thing you can do to a failing drive.

^This^ along with all the accessing.

Best thing to do at this point is let the drive sit (I mean overnight sit) not plugged into any power. Let it cool off and completely discharge. Plug it back in, in an open air room temperature area preferably with a desk fan blowing directly on it. Then use a very good block level imaging tool to build an image. But do not keep trying to chkdsk or mount and read access the drive.

 

[lcoughey]

^This^ along with all the accessing.

Best thing to do at this point is let the drive sit (I mean overnight sit) not plugged into any power. Let it cool off and completely discharge. Plug it back in, in an open air room temperature area preferably with a desk fan blowing directly on it. Then use a very good block level imaging tool to build an image. But do not keep trying to chkdsk or mount and read access the drive.

^This^ is ill advised until you properly diagnose the issue. I've never encountered a Seagate with overheating issues in all my years of data recovery. Do the above if you don't value the data and professional services are out of the question...'cause once you kill the drive, the odds go down and the price goes up.

By the way, I'm not saying that these methods absolutely won't work, but they are a gamble and the odds are very low. If your data is valuable enough, it makes sense to get it done by a pro. If a pro is unable to recover your data, they just saved you a lot of time at no cost to you (usually). If the pro cost is too high, you can then weigh out your options.

But, again, remember that any damage that chkdsk did to the file system cannot be undone.

 

[anonymous Mac Tech]

^This^ is ill advised until you properly diagnose the issue. I've never encountered a Seagate with overheating issues in all my years of data recovery.

Interesting. Apple is replacing all Seagate 1TB hard drives in iMacs manufactured between 2009 and 2011. Although Apple hasn't disclosed it's an overheating issue with these drives but after hundreds of data extractions from these affected drives I can almost guarantee it is. But as you pointed out, what do I know?

 

[lcoughey]

Interesting. Apple is replacing all Seagate 1TB hard drives in iMacs manufactured between 2009 and 2011. Although Apple hasn't disclosed it's an overheating issue with these drives but after hundreds of data extractions from these affected drives I can almost guarantee it is. But as you pointed out, what do I know?

In that case, the drive would be overheating due to the environment, not because of the drive itself. It could be that you are seeing something that I haven't yet encountered...who knows. If the drive has an issue with "overheating," you should deal with the cause of the symptoms, not the symptoms themselves, unless it isn't worth it...then beat away all you want.

 

[anonymous Mac Tech]

In that case, the drive would be overheating due to the environment, not because of the drive itself. It could be that you are seeing something that I haven't yet encountered...who knows. If the drive has an issue with "overheating," you should deal with the cause of the symptoms, not the symptoms themselves, unless it isn't worth it...then beat away all you want.

The environment. Funny how it's only the Seagates being replaced while just as many of those machines I see with Western Digital or Hitachi drives (same size drive, RPM in same "environment") and don't seem to run as hot and are also being left in these machines. But anyway, my "beating away" seems to pay off.

 

[GeeksInKhakis]

update

Well, I let the customer know what I was able to get off of the drive. After those 3 attempts where it would stop responding, I decided not to risk any further damage. The customer is going to review the recovered data (pics of kids) and compare it to what may be on another computer, thumb drives, etc and see if there may be anything he 'can't live without'. If so, I'll probably talk to 'othersteve' and see if his DeepSpar will work on it.

 

[300DDR]

It could also be firmware issue, with the drive getting hung when trying to run background tasks. What is the model and firmware version of hard drive?