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Data recovery and disk repair questions and discussions related to old-fashioned SATA, SAS, SCSI, IDE, MFM hard drives - any type of storage device that has moving parts
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3TB HDD dying. Backing up unbearably slow. Please help!

June 10th, 2015, 6:36

Hey guys, I need your help.
I have a 3TB Toshiba internal HDD which seems to be dying (SMART says Reallocated Sectors Count is very bad).

The thing is, nothing I tried does find Bad Sectors (CHKDSK, HDD Regenerator, ...) and my data seems to be accessible. The problem, however, if I try to copy files off of it it works unbearably slow.

When the HDD tries to access the (I suppose) bad sectors the reading speed goes down to less than 500KB/s, while at other times it seems to be fine and the file starts copying at 100MB/s. I have had a backup running overnight, but it only managed to get like 300GB of the 2700GB, so I'm looking for another angle. Also, when the HDD is accessed for a scan or copy or anything, the usage goes up to 100% immediately.

In Windows Task Manager it then says
Code:
Active Time: 100%

and jumps between

Average response time: 2000ish ms
Read speed: 500ishKB/s

and

Average response time: 0ms
Read speed: 0KB/s


I've tried 'Roadkills Unstoppable Copier' that apparently can copy undamaged files first and so on, but it doesn't think that any of my files are damaged, it starts copying just as everything else and then just goes down with the speed to take forever.

What I don't understand is why there are apparently bad sectors, but nothing does see them, the HDD just totally dives in performance when these sectors come up. That's what I guess at least. Am I overlooking something?

What's the best way to salvage my data? I assume I will send that drive back for warranty after I have my data secured.

Thanks for the help.

Edit: I just finished copying a video (first 30% of the file took like 10s to copy, last 70% took more than 10mins or so) to another drive. It opens and plays just fine.

Re: 3TB HDD dying. Backing up unbearably slow. Please help!

June 10th, 2015, 7:52

If you want to keep drive with enough good conditions and you need data - don't try it anymore because situation will become worst after multiple attempts to copy files. Better to bring it to pro.

Re: 3TB HDD dying. Backing up unbearably slow. Please help!

June 10th, 2015, 10:07

as said, if your data is importatn contact with a pro.

If not is very important you can try to copy with the tools that you speak.

Where are you located, for recomend you a close pro.

Re: 3TB HDD dying. Backing up unbearably slow. Please help!

June 10th, 2015, 10:11

If pro recovery is out of your price range ($300-$500 USD) then you might consider trying to clone the data using ddrescue. It likely can speed the process up considerably, as well as handle the bad sectors without killing the drive hopefully. Here's a ddrescue tutorial.

Re: 3TB HDD dying. Backing up unbearably slow. Please help!

June 10th, 2015, 10:58

in addition to data-medics
you can try ddrescue in reverse
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