Help to recover data from a semi-dead Seagate 7200.12

[crenn]

Hi everyone,

I have a Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 (ST31000528AS) hard drive which spins up, I can hear it being accessed for a short time, before the system BSODs and the hard drive disappears from the BIOS. If the drive/computer is power cycled, this behaviour will repeat. This is also true for attaching it to another computer, if any access attempt to the hard drive, after a very short time, the drive becomes inaccessible including SMART data. I originally thought it might be the controller of the hard drive and I had another hard drive of the same model, so I switched the firmware ICs between the controller boards, but this has made no difference overall. The firmware version on the hard drive is CC38. This hard drive did have a SMART failure due to reallocated sectors and was about to be replaced.

Main reason for not taking this to a professional is cost, the data on it isn't hugely important, but I would like to recover it if possible. I've heard about people attaching a USB-Serial Converter to the 4 2mm pitch pins at the back of the hard drive and entering commands to help get the drive going, is that possible with this hard drive? If so, what are the IO voltage levels needed? Is there anything else I can try? After data recovery operations, this hard drive is going to be junked.

Thank you for reading,
Crenn

[DRforensic]

Try simple data recovery software for example DMDE. It simple and efficient. Make sure you keep your hard drive cooled down. Seagate heads like to fail when drives gets hot. Is the hard drive getting offline `freeze` and never become readable?

[MindMergepk]

I would stop relocation with congen (lacking better tools) and then attempt to clone with hardware tool like DDI4.
If the data is important consider to send the drive to a data recovery firm because at this point it might still be a cheap recovery.
If you clone without disabling relocation you might kill the heads faster.
Using tools to clone like unstopable copy without hardware assistence might clone "garbage" or zeros if the drive stop to respond, even if you disable relocation.
Applying the 7200.11 solution to this drive will most likely do things worse, as the drive doesn't have the busy/lba problem and if it have values on the non resident g list you will end up with partial lba access and messed up translator.

+1 for stop relocation and clone.