Hi,

A friend's external hdd became unreadable after defragmentation. My friend is far from me so I could not see the disk.
He said that the defragmentation ran normally and after it the disk became unrecognizable.
This disk does not contain an OS, just data. Anyone had a similar problem? Is there any solution?
Thanks.

Hello,

Defragmentation is generally a safe methode.
The problem is somewhere else.
...like the much stronger writes than normal use...
For me, there is 2 case:
1. phisical damage of the drive, and now have some head problem as well
2. SA related problem.

Usually (in 99% of the cases) both case requires special equipments and laboratory for recover the data.
The best what you can do, say to your friend: Don't try to use the hdd more at this point, because can do more problems in any case.
And ask the hdd's model number.
If we know the model number, we can recognize the potential SA problem or we know the usual behavior of the damaged drives.

Regards,
Janos

Thanks for the reply.
I will ask my friend for the model.
What do you mean by 'SA'?

Thanks.

If the data is valuable, I suggest you contact forum member "dmarques" - he is a professional in Portugal and can help you.

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Data Recovery Ireland

SA meaning service area which use for stock firmware in platters.

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data recovery service[/b]

The hd model is Western Digital My Book World Edition (1TB).

Thanks.

Hmm
Than this can be anything exactly.

Does the drive spin up, than click some (3-8) times and spindown?
Or spin up, does some quiet head move noise and stay in spining?
What can you/your friend see when plug in the USB cable?

ps: If clicks and spindown, than don't force the drive more to do this, because can be damgerous for data!

Janos