Seagate ST31000340A firmware SD 35 , is this firmware defect

[riteshj]

Friends i need your guidance to save my family photographs.
My external hard disk suddenly gives data reading error so i removed it from casing ( seagate free agent)
when i try to connect to desktop , i could see my data but i could not copy anything. I tried to clone recover data using techassist byteback on dos , here i could go upto certain sectors but disk gives lot of bad sectors.
I have read that seagate has shipped millions of disks with some engineering defect.
However seagate site does not show this model in affected list.
http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board/mes ... e.id=13540

Is it safe to apply rs232 method suggested in this forum? will that make further complications ? any suggestion or advice please.

[pepe]

In case the drive does report its correct ID and capacity, and u can read some sectors, it is not very probable having FW problem, and surely not the usual translator defect.

I suspect something head related in this case...

pepe

[pcimage]

Agree with pepe, the drive has bad sectors and/or weak/defective head(s).

You could try cloning to a good drive with non-windows based software, such as dd_rescue ot Media Tools pro. But if it starts making any strange noises then stop right away and seek pro assistance.

[riteshj]

Thanks pepe , pcimage. I have got all my data. One of my friend managed to reverse clone disk & my data was in last partitions. He diagnosed weak heads , which gave error when accessing zones they cover.

[pepe]

good one, thx for the feedback