The drive, used to power an Apple MacBook Pro (OS X 10.6. failed. When the system booted up, a white screen appeared, and about 5 minutes afterwards, a disk icon and question mark flashed. Further investigation established that the HDD failed, and when interrogating the hard drive (through a USB to SATA Connector), it indicated "Slow Read Access".

Although, after several days of interrogation, the drive displays the File Structures, and if a self contained document is clicked and dragged, then it is transferred quite quickly, what is the likely cause of the Slow Read Access?

I am interested in producing a clone of the drive if possible, to retrieve critical files (an estimated 20Gb from the 218Gb capacity used).

Given that other users have reported a successful repair by transplanting a PCB from an identical unit, is this option likely to work.

pROBABLY BAD HEADS OR FIRMAWARE PROBLEMS, YOU NEED EXPECIAL TOOLS.
VALUE OF TOOLSS ARROUND 10.000 EUR, BETTER EXTERNALICE THE DRIVE MAYBE SEAN CAN HEL YOU


TO CONTACT WITH SEAN: pcimage ON THIS FORUM

Thanks for the info-I am using Data Rescue 3, which is attempting to retrieve the data, but the process is quite slow.

You can try it with it, but remember that if any fisical problem on drive, maybe worst.

speak with pcimage, in case of problems.

You will do a better job if you clone the drive first...use Linux ddrescue or Media Tools Pro..when you got a good clone you can work with that.
Don't attempt to recover from your original drive.

Bosse

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Rescue IT Datarecovery service Sweden
Rescue IT Dataräddning Göteborg AB
http://www.rescue-it.se

Thanks for the advice... I will investigate any option as a means of initially producing a clone of the drive, although given that it is likely that a fault has emerged on either the PCB or data transfer subsystem, any software solution (including the use of Dara Rescue 3) is likely to be compromised by the physical fault.


Thanks again for the advice.

+1 for Mr. Spokk

ddrescue it onto another drive before you kill the drive running software scans. The drive likely has bad sector areas making it slow, those scans will kill your drive.

If you've never used ddrescue before PM me and I can offer some help.

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Data Medics - Hard Drive, SSD, and RAID Data Recovery Service Company

using conventional data recovery software over a failing drive is really a bad idea.
if data is vital contact a Pro, pcimage is indeed a experienced member on this forum.

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Data Recovery Pakistan