wd3200aajs will only read data area with look ahead off...

[bcometa]

hello gurus -- i have this wd drive (wd3200aajs-00rya0, royl, 3.5" sata) where the main problem is the data area can't be accessed. in hd doctor, all modules read ok, no problems. couldn't read rom, but that could be hd doc bug. i regenerated rom from modules and uploaded ok.

when i connect with deepspar, it will stop reading after 120 sectors. i can get it to read fine when i "initialize" drive with "disable read look ahead" checked and only enable 1 head. however, this makes reading the drive a very slow process. i've tried every other combination and can't find any other solution.

does anyone know what the root problem of this drive would be and how i can fix it (using hd doctor, not pc3000)? any info appreciated.

** tried translator regeneration on hd doctor, successful, but same problem. also tried unlocking drive and resetting smart.

[hddguy]

Did you try this in reverse? How is the end of the disk, does it read better?

[bcometa]

hi thanks hddguy -- actually funny you mention that. i tried reverse, it works without "disable read look ahead" and about twice as fast. also the drive is only 1/2 full. at this point, i should be able to recover the data within a 3-5 hours (unless conditions change). also -- just tried enabling all heads in reverse and it's working well. not sure why i mind-farted on trying reverse to begin with, usually one of my first ideas, but it was an odd problem. thanks again for the thoughts.

*perhaps the beginning of the platters are scratched or something, and that's why reverse is working -- will find out soon enough.

[hddguy]

You have a problem common in Tornado disks, and after about 30% image in reverse conditions will not be so good again. Sectors at end are stored in different density than earlier sectors...

[bcometa]

Thanks hddguy, I think you identified this problem correctly. I actually got to about 70% in reverse, now having problems "drive returns wrong LBA number with error" on heads 0 and 1 ("????" in DDI). Overall still pretty good, just really slow now trying to get remaining 30% on heads 0 and 1.

[networkpc3000]

have you change PCB before?

[bcometa]

i didn't on this one - although i have a compatible donor, i'd rather not risk it (even if not much risk involved). it's still going, only need about 20% more on head 0 and 9% more on head 1 and done

btw -- i discovered that reading in blocks above 8 sectors will cause problems (stopping every couple seconds and repowering drive). stick with 8 sector blocks, and it moves 8x faster than 1 sector at a time. also need "disable read look ahead" for any of this to work.

[mattbrad2]

Good stuff. We need more "Case studies" for the DDI. I for one never saw a reason to set the sector count to anything but 1 or 120; never had a reason to. I guess I'll need to start tweaking this more. Thanks.

[hddguy]

Have you recieved many read errors, or sectors skipped?

There is a simple solution for this fault, but if your image is almost complete then you will reach your data without it.

[bcometa]

it's all done at this point -- 100% recovered. it was having read errors -- in particular, go for 8-16 sectors, freeze, repower, 1 sectors, freeze, repower, 1 sector... and so on.

i'm still interested in a simple solution in case i get one of these again.

[dpc]

Have you recieved many read errors, or sectors skipped?

There is a simple solution for this fault, but if your image is almost complete then you will reach your data without it.

I'm just starting to image wd3200aajs-22rya0 right now with Data Extractor. Does your solution apply to DE as well?

[pcimage]

it's all done at this point -- 100% recovered. it was having read errors -- in particular, go for 8-16 sectors, freeze, repower, 1 sectors, freeze, repower, 1 sector... and so on.

i'm still interested in a simple solution in case i get one of these again.

You have PM

[PAKComputers]

could you PM me the solution for this

we have the same issue -- with "disable read look ahead" checked only 44KB/sec
gonna take months to read the last 33%......

[Alexii]

Tornado drives are known to give partial LBA access. It varies from case to case. For example from 0 to 40% and nothing after. Or from end to 20% but nothing before it. Solution is to change the PCB , reconstruct ROM from SA image ( if needed ) and image the drive. It seems Tornado drives like to run very hot. The PCB pad a lot of times carries black scorch marks. Might have smth to do with that.