Please! How do you retrieve data from between bad secors?

[ricardomardi]

Hi
Thank you for reading this, I have a 40GB Hitahi drive that is full of bad sectors (50% of the drive has been mapped with bad sectors).

I have tried doing an image with Diskpatch, but no go! It will hang for 10 weeks before anything happens!

Is there a way or a program that will allow me to just set it so it ignores the bad sectors (like a surface scan can) & just quickly get the data off the raw good sectors??

I would be so very gratefull for any feedback.
I'm fascinated by Data recovery procedures & I'm just learning .

Thank you kindly for your time.

Regards
Ricardo in Sydney.

[Tony]

What kind of HDD is it? Maxtor, WD, IBM, Fujitsu?
Before you do anything, I suggest removing the controller from the drive and cleaning all the connectors that connect the PCB with the HDA (hard disk assembly). If you still have problems getting data off that drive - the best is to use an application that is capable of getting the data off bad sectors. Something like Data Extractor.

[ricardomardi]

40GB Hitachi Travelstar Model HTS584040M9T00.

Thank you for the info about Data Extractor.
This is the situation, the drive does not make any sounds, it detects ok though BIOs but SMART always picks up the errors & warns me.

I have done a quick check of the surface with 'HD Tune' & it appears that the drive is severely bad, around 50% of the drive comes up as having bad sectors.

I've tried using Diskpatch to try to make an image of it, I chose Diskpatch because I could adjust read retries to zero, hoping that it could get past the bad sectors quickly.

The problem is that it will take for ever to get past a few bad sectors so I didn't want to risk it & stopped the procedure after a short while.

Here's my question:

a) If a surface tester can quickly scan the disk & map the bad sectors, why can't there be a program that can quickly locate bad sectors & the just go for the raw file recovery?

Data Extractor sounds great, but i would also need to get the РС-3000 utility with the hardware card that comes with it, the problem is that this product is in Canada & I'm in Sydney. And I don't have much time left.

Any advice would be gratefuly apreciated! Thank you!

[ricardomardi]

Sorry, I mistyped my question... here it goes again:

a) If a surface tester can quickly scan the disk & map the bad sectors, why can't there be a program that can quickly locate bad sectors & the good ones, and then just go for a raw file recovery within the good sectors?

Thank you.

[ricardomardi]

...hard disk!

I'm also wondering how so many bad sectors came to be on this drive.
When I did the HD tune surface test, the graphic showed me a Zig Zag type pattern all over the drive.

I know that this is a specific pattern signature that will indicate a clue as to what's wrong with the drive.

I suspect that it may mean that there is a vibration problem.
Maybe the disk has been slightly shifted off center & it's not allowing the heads to stay on the cylinder lines.

Any thoughts would be gratefuly apreciated.

Ricardo el Argentino saying "G'Day/Buenos Dias from Sydney!"

[b0ba]

...hard disk!

I'm also wondering how so many bad sectors came to be on this drive.

Whole surface.

When I did the HD tune surface test, the graphic showed me a Zig Zag type pattern all over the drive.

Seems that one of the heads is not working.

Is there a way or a program that will allow me to just set it so it ignores the bad sectors (like a surface scan can) & just quickly get the data off the raw good sectors??

Noone will develope such program. Data, that will be recovered with such tool, will be useless.

WBR
b0ba

[pninja]

Hi Ricardo,

I suggest to use Mediatools cloning with read retry set to zero.
It is a great cloning solution when there are lot of bad sectors on
the source HDD.

Good luck

[insomne]

I did this to recover data from some bad disk with lots of unreadable sectors:

first scan it with mhdd (without remapping, just plain scan)
second: save the log mhdd created to a diskette or something
third: use the generated log to make a list in excel
fourth: using that list you can then generate a script that start linux dd a gazillion times if needed, specifying to dd the start and end sector that it should read, obviously avoiding the bad sectors.

It worked fine to me. Remember to disable hard disk and file system prefetch using hdparm before running the script... that takes longer but reads more.

I hope you can retrieve your info.

[pepe]

to Insomne:

AFAIK when U run MHDD scan it reads 256 sectors a time. if there are bads in the packet, it stops reading after the first returning its LBA. It is logged, but you won't have info about the rest in that block.
Please, DP, confirm it!
thanx

pepe

[Dmitry_Postrigan]

pepe
Almost
MHDD scans by 255 sectors (for IDE drive, other values for SCSI). And yes, it will jump over the whole bad block (to save time).
But TOF/ATOF commands will display every error.

[ricardomardi]

I't amazing, I almost gave up on it & then I read a suggestion about Mediatools from pninja, THANK YOU!!! I'be recovered more than 90% of the 40GB Drive!!!!

I'm still pinching myself, for the last 4 weeks I've been trying to get around the bad sectors, BELIEVE ME, it looked hopeless. I tried Diskpatch, Ghost, Drive Image, etc.

I tried getting DiskPatch to start reading a reverse with 0 retries too, it would just hang there, & not get past 0!. Just to confirm, when I did a bad sector scan with HD Tune, it showed a MASSIVE 50% of the drive had surface bad sectors!

An old Network guy I know also told me that sometimes they used to get data out of faulty drives by turning them upside down, I don't quite know but I unwittingly placed the 2 1/2 inch drive upside down purely cause it suited me better at that momment, I don't know if it was the Media Tools or the position, but it started flying over previously imposible realestate!

Has anyone ever heard of this before? I really don't know if this is true or just a myth. Could there be truth to the upside down theory?

Thanks Insome, that's some good advice, & thanks Pepe too.
And many thanks for all the other posts, this is an excellent board.

[insomne]

MHDD scans by 255 sectors (for IDE drive, other values for SCSI). And yes, it will jump over the whole bad block (to save time)

I didn't know that... I think thats why I didn't break the drive before taking out the info from it. Making just plain trial and error I found I had to "isolate" the errors adding 512 sectors counting from the bad block and stop reading 512 sectors before touchin the next bad block. I realized later that I should have disabled the prefetch to don't touch the bad blocks... but anyway my client got a lot of info she thought lost forever.

Sorry my bad english, I'm from Colombia

200 ways to revive a hard disk.
This is the text that has this "advice" and a lot of others. Everyday I receive a message or a fone call asking me if this "tip" works or can help to save DATA. I do not believe that has people that read this and do the same with its disks.
Anyway, seams to me that to do not pay a recovery service people can do anything, including loose theyers time reading and trying this "advices"
I hear this from a Canadian professional and I will repeat: "Good for you ".
But for me: "Please give me a break"
Jose Pinto


Ps: For people who like to live dangerously here is my contribution:
http://www.sheehy.ca/crypto/resources/200.pdf
http://www.hddrecovery.com.au/metatraff ... 00ways.pdf
and also here:
http://techrepublic.com.com/5100-1035-5029761-5.html#

Please do not forget to buy a hammer also a plastic bag, they are very good I think that if does not work for the hard disk, can be used for others things, just need to open the mind.

[dzabaludin]

Well. Jose, I haven't tried with upside-down theory, but have had a few times success in using "deep frizer repair".

If spindle won't start to rotate, maybe it's worn out, so it could rotate if it could start. By freezing HDD, you probably squeeze this extra space which is made during time, and motor has enough power to start.

You can try to put it in deep freezer for 5-15 minutes. I use double plastic bags to avoid condensation. It is only in cases when disk won't start spinning. I did it successfully, as I recall, more than 5 times.

Concerning the "hammer theory", it also worked for me once. The problem was also non-spinning disk. Didn't have hammer at that time, so I've used my fist, after I got out of any other solutions in my mind. I hit it hard, very hard, full of anger and despair. And it started spinning after that!!!

So, these, so called, "repair theories", can help as last chance to repair hdds. People will do anything in moment of disaster.

[dstefan]

I had a similar problem like that and used HD Regenerator ... it recovered all the bad sectors.

Sorry if this is a repost

Read my post , please.
I said that people that loose theyer data normaly - WILL DO ANYTHING TO RECOVER THEYER FILES.
I know better then anyone here what is to loose the files and to do not have money to pay to get the files back, I live in Brasil and here we have a lot of people that has no money.
But we also need to consider other kind of people, thouse who has money who has companies and has the same behavior, and I have seeing a lot of this kind of person all my life.
I said here once, and I will repeet. People here need to read and try to uderstand what are reading. I live in Brasil and I have here one kind of situation, people that lives in Europe and USA has no ideia of what is Brasil and also has another kind of situation.
Jose Pinto