Samsung SP2514N

[RawCode]

Hi there . I'm an italian student that wants to start with data recovery.

I own a Samsung SP2514N P120 250GB IDE with no important data that works, but after few minutes it produces some noises(TOC TOC TO-TO TOC) and stops working. I think that could be a heads problem, but i've no experience. What do you think? What tools, except a clean chamber(that i want to build it), shouls i use?

I notices that this hdd it's particularly expensive, there is any cheaper donor with compatible heads?

Thank you

[fzabkar]

Examine the log from the serial TTL port.

How to connect a terminal adaptor on a Samsung drive ?
http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=116&t=189&p=432

[RawCode]

Thank you for the answer.

I don't understand if i've to remove all jumpers and where is TX and RX. Can you help me?

[RawCode]

Ok, I'm using Arduino as serial monitor. After some trial and error i've obtained this output in putty:

Code:

lltst 0000
               SpnOk
spd:  0000 0000 0000
H: +00000
ADC: 0001
DAC: 9B8F
SK C: 00018F67
ENG>SRV>
  SvoTbl Loaded
  BD

  FdtTbl Loaded
ENG>


However if i write anything, nothing appends. What now?

[Martin]

Log looks Ok, but if you hear a clicking sound, probably one of the four heads is not good (may be not dead, but not OK).

P.S. If you have good knowledge in electronics, you'll spent at least 2-3 years to get strong knowledge in DR. Meanwhile, recovery business is dying. Do you want to be a professional in dead speciality?

[RawCode]

Thank You for the reply.
What do you suggest? Head Swap?

Why is data recovery business dying?

[fzabkar]

@RawCode, since you have no important data, you could use your drive as a test subject.

For example, you could use MHDD (in DOS) to perform a full surface scan. This should identify bad areas related to your bad head(s).

http://hddguru.com/software/2005.10.02-MHDD/

You could also experiment with data recovery tools such as HDDSuperClone and ddrescue.

http://www.sdcomputingservice.com/hddsuperclone

You could dump the drive's firmware with a demo version of SHTR or SHT.

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=149&t=1084

[RawCode]

Thanks for the replies.

Today I'm going to try your suggestions.

I've recorded the noise, here the link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5KZd_ISqamra1ZMa2RpNV9TZ3c/view?usp=sharing
The strange thing is that the hard drive doesn't make this noise immediately, but after 1-2 minutes of (slow) working, after these minutes it produces this noise and stops working.

[fzabkar]

I would examine the drive's SMART report with a tool such as CrystalDiskInfo:
http://crystalmark.info/software/Crysta ... dex-e.html

[RawCode]

I dont' know how or why, but HDDSuperClone managed to clone the drive, after more or less 11 hours.
I suppose that the drive makes that noise and stops when it goes, after 2 minutes, to a "stand-by mode", but if it is working constantly i can access the files.

Now i've got a file, without extention, of about 244GB. I tried to mount that image in R-Studio, but it finds only a text file that you can find in the attachment of this reply.

00.txt

(422.09 KiB) Downloaded 659 times

What now?

[labtech]

That looks like the log hddsuperclone created to keep track of the unreadable areas on the drive.
In R-Studio, to load your image, you need to select "all images" from the drop down file type menu to see it.

[RawCode]

I did it, but after the scan, there is only the file I attached previously. Is it normal?

[labtech]

I did it, but after the scan, there is only the file I attached previously. Is it normal?

Sorry, not sure I understand. Can you provide screenshots? Or a short video? Can use monosnap.com to easily record desktop.

[RawCode]

Here the video: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5KZd_ISqamrWC0xRDVXZG5haHM

[fzabkar]

Code:

################ START CONFIGURATION DATA ################
# startconfig
# logfile     /media/lubuntu/Archivio/ASGANA
# source     /dev/sdb
# destination     /media/lubuntu/Archivio/asgana

Could there be confusion due to the names of the log and image files?

[RawCode]

Code:

################ START CONFIGURATION DATA ################
# startconfig
# logfile     /media/lubuntu/Archivio/ASGANA
# source     /dev/sdb
# destination     /media/lubuntu/Archivio/asgana

Could there be confusion due to the names of the log and image files?

Thank You!
R-Studio confuses these 2 files. I renamed the HDDSuperClone's project file and it just worked!
Data Recovery on this drive is finished, but what do you think was the problem in this unit?

[fzabkar]

From the log file, it appears that your drive has a bad section of size 21GB between 146GB and 167GB.

Code:

# position    size        status    info    err/status
0x000000    0x11169180    0x7f    0x0    0x0        <-- 146GB OK

0x11169180 - 0x13956f1a  <-- lots of read errors in this area of the drive (21GB)

0x13956f1b    0x986ea55    0x7f    0x0    0x0        <-- 81GB OK

You see the damaged section with HDDSCViewer:
http://www.sdcomputingservice.com/hddscviewer

[data-medics]

Why is data recovery business dying?

Since no one else answered this, I'll throw my two cents in. Hard drives will soon enough be replaced by SSDs as the storage of choice. I suspect it'll be only 5-7 more years before new computers are all shipping with SSDs instead of spinning HDDs. Granted, HDDs will still be around and failing for another decade or so past that, but the number needing recovery will start to decline.

SSDs are far more difficult to recover from and often it's just impossible. As more and more SSDs are moving to full hardware encryption, a huge chunk of the data recovery business will be gone because a huge percentage of cases will be beyond reasonable means to recover. That's not to say it won't exist on some level. There will still be some companies doing SSD recoveries, thumb drive and flash recoveries, etc. But, hard drives have been the bread and butter profitable sector of this business for a long time. It'd be very hard for a substantial number of companies to stay around when the spinners start to fade into the sunset. I know I plan to retire from this business before that happens.

[RawCode]

Why is data recovery business dying?

Since no one else answered this, I'll throw my two cents in. Hard drives will soon enough be replaced by SSDs as the storage of choice. I suspect it'll be only 5-7 more years before new computers are all shipping with SSDs instead of spinning HDDs. Granted, HDDs will still be around and failing for another decade or so past that, but the number needing recovery will start to decline.

SSDs are far more difficult to recover from and often it's just impossible. As more and more SSDs are moving to full hardware encryption, a huge chunk of the data recovery business will be gone because a huge percentage of cases will be beyond reasonable means to recover. That's not to say it won't exist on some level. There will still be some companies doing SSD recoveries, thumb drive and flash recoveries, etc. But, hard drives have been the bread and butter profitable sector of this business for a long time. It'd be very hard for a substantial number of companies to stay around when the spinners start to fade into the sunset. I know I plan to retire from this business before that happens.

This makes me sad. I hope that before the complete switch from HDD to SSD, there'll be something to recover SSD's data, not only for this business, but to prevent losing our memories.

Thank you for the help guys

[fzabkar]

I believe that Intel's 3D XPoint (and competing ReRAM/Crossbar technologies) have the potential to kill off flash based devices. Hopefully this new technology will be reliable, unlike flash. (The big heatsink on Intel's Optane P4800X is a bit of a worry.)

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/03/intels-first-optane-ssd-375gb-that-you-can-also-use-as-ram/