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
October 4th, 2023, 23:12
Hey all, I'm looking for some advice on an issue I'd like to resolve if it is possible.
So, the drive I have was working, and my hard drive dock disconnected during a transfer randomly (not physically, it just unmounted my drives) i removed the plug and put it back in, there was nothing happening so I pulled all the hard drives out, put them all back in till I found the problem drive.
Here is the details of that drive
4TB BarraCuda ST4000DM004
was about 90% full, give or take.
Now I'm not overly fussed about 89.9% of the data. It would be nice but it's not an issue to lose it and start again if needed. But there is one zip file in particular i need to recover. That has my son's photos who is no longer here. The worst part is, i was mid back up as i had a feeling the drivers were starting to get old as performance had dropped and i needed to clean up the drive and separate my work and personal data. The issue i had with that was i didn't have quite enough space on all the drives so i was shuffling data around, but i didn't quite get through enough of the transfer to include my photos and the recordings of his voice. which is the hardest part of all this. (i usually have backups that's why i have multiple disks, but because i was transferring the data to the backup, those files were not saved yet.) Right now, I'm utterly heart broken and trying to learn to recover the data, I'm usually one to do things myself, but if necessary i will just send it off to a specialist but i would like to see if it is possible to restore the partition.
Now the symptoms are this:
There is no ticking, no scratching, no click or any other strange noises coming from the device other than the normal spin up sound.
It does prevent the rest of my drives from mounting if it is plugged in at the same time, they all simply just disappear.
i can see the drive in partition manager, i cannot mount the drive in any form of normal way. I can see that it has an empty partition (it's not, it's just that its claiming that it is) and i can access it with a hex editor.
Now I'm not much good with a hex editor yet, I'm still learning and I'm trying to not plug this drive in as much as possible to prevent any further issues.
What steps could you recommend, or what tools / books / sites might help, i have been reading the last few days on the site but haven't really found anything with the same matching scenario.?
I do have a donor drive here that is the same drive and model if it's a board issue, so I'm willing to lose the entire drive and data just to retrieve my audio clips of his voice as they are the most important to me.
i appreciate the time to read and any help is much appreciated
October 5th, 2023, 2:44
As a first step connect a serial terminal to see what's happening. You need one that's capable of 1.8V Vccio.
pepe
October 5th, 2023, 2:58
would this be acceptable ?
it doesnt say it supports linux, which im sure i could get it to work, but not sure if this is the technology you are mentioning?
https://www.amazon.com/Adapter-Terminal ... =8-1-fkmr0
October 5th, 2023, 9:07
this one is 5V only.
there are topics on the forum containing links to usb-serial adapters having jumper to set io voltage, this drive needs 1.8V.
October 5th, 2023, 10:03
It's probably a piece of cake case to any data recovery specialist with the right tools, but for you it's not
It's nice that you want to learn and you might be able to diagnose the issue but also might not be able to move forward and solve it.
I recommend you to send the hdd to a specialist unless you can live with the fact that you might lose the data while trying to fix it
October 6th, 2023, 1:13
thank you, i will get onto finding one,
yeah i dont want to loose the data, but i have always wanted to learn and so if this one is dicey ill send it away instead. but i would like to start getting some tools together even if i have to get some drives for learning etc. im ok with some cost, but if i can avoid it atm due to the way the world is financially, i will. but the more i learn over time ill get some experience interacting and reading, and eventually ill have some skills. but this particular data is important, and if it is easy as i would suspect for some of you guys it is, then if it is a matter of a few steps awesome it didn't cost me a 1k to get a folder of 500mb back. but if it is complicated i wont touch the drive and ill just have a pro do it. that way i can be assured that there is a higher chance of recovery.
but i thought i would ask first and do some research, i would never just plug something in, or enter a command without understanding it first. so i ask advice then i research deeper into the answers so i can have a full understanding of what im actually doing,, other wise i just forget the steps 10 minutes later and it was all for nothing. Learning is as important to me as the loss its self in a sense that in this case its a very very big loss if it is gone for good, but ill still remember it all, but to learn from my mistake is also extremely valuable and learning beyond the mistake is a prevention measure in making sure i have better back up strategy and fall back if that fails like it has in this instance.
October 6th, 2023, 2:31
It might be easy for us with right tools and expertise, but at the same time it is challenging for someone without these.
If I were you i would find a member in LA to sort it out precisely. Unfortunately it is not possible to search for forum member based on location, and i have no idea whom to contact there but maybe somebody can advise...
pepe
October 6th, 2023, 9:47
That's nice to hear, my suggestion would be to send the hdd to a specialist and if the problem is as I'm expecting then after extracting the important data that you need then they should give it back to you with the same issue it already have right now and then you can do whatever you want without risking to lose anything or fear to do the steps anyone would recommend to you
October 6th, 2023, 23:57
Thank you all for the advice it is greatly appreciated, ill work on getting it sorted for data specialist this week. How would one package it to prevent any more data damage during transport? are there any specifics i must take into account? i know new hard drives come in a bag, but is there any conditions when they contain data to prevent further loss or damage?
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