HDD data recovery – intermittent disconnect/reconnect

[Hohgua]

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for some advice from people experienced in HDD repair and data recovery before I take any further steps with this drive.

The HDD is an old IDE/PATA drive Hitachi DK222A-54 540MB, probably dating from around 1995. I have not opened it yet. The data on it is important, so I would like to avoid doing anything that could make the situation worse.

The main problem is that the drive repeatedly disconnects and reconnects. I have tried several different USB-to-IDE/PATA adapters and an old pc with native ide/pata connector. The drive is detected by SystemRescue with the proper model name, and appears in the system logs, but it then disconnects and reconnects approximately every 3 seconds.

When this happens, I can hear the drive spinning normally, but I also hear the heads moving and then returning, followed by the drive apparently resetting and being detected again.

I made many attempts to read the drive, and at one point I was surprisingly able to recover approximately 70% of the disk using `ddrescue`. After that, however, I could no longer recover additional data. The situation has since deteriorated to the point where I cannot reliably read even the first sector because the drive keeps disconnecting and reconnecting.

The original HDD – the drive containing the data I am trying to recover.

Original PCB – front side.

Original PCB – back side.

The donor HDD – the drive I found as a possible donor for replacement components.

I made a list of the components I could identify on the PCB:

- Zilog Z86C9524ASC Z8 DSP 9439 KJ
- SRM2A256LLRM70 JAPAN V4Z3487
- ATMEL AT29C256 12TC 9502
- 32P4742-CGT ZS9502 55524F1
- 24.000 KDS 4L JAPAN
- HM62864LT7 9507 000 JAPAN 0G330
- CIRRUS LOGIC CL-SH4600-44VC-D 38642-310BF 9504 F KOREA-B
- GPS CLA71023CG 9502FPL
- Philips TDA5341G J11781 JvJ9448 2
- 4C TY2352
- 51 TY2342
- 9952 EY W448
- 51 TY2342

I’m not sure which of these components, if any, are relevant to diagnosing the failure, so I would appreciate any insight from someone familiar with HDD electronics from this era.

I also have an xGecu T48 if it could be useful to recover the data from the ATMEL AT29C256 12TC 9502.



At this point I have not opened the drive, as I don't have a proper clean environment yet. I am also trying to obtain a suitable laminar-flow/clean-air setup before considering any internal work.

Any advice on how to diagnose this failure mode would be greatly appreciated. I would especially like to understand what the symptoms indicate before proceeding with the donor drive.

Thanks in advance!

[Hohgua]

DDrescue log:

# Mapfile. Created by GNU ddrescue version 1.30
# Command line: ddrescue -n -R /dev/sdc /mnt/backup/hitachi.img /mnt/backup/hitachi.log
# Start time: 2026-08-12 16:21:07
# Current time: 2026-08-12 16:27:14
# Copying non-tried blocks... Pass 1 (backwards)
# current_pos current_status current_pass
0x18440000 ? 1
# pos size status
0x00000000 0x0FD40000 +
0x0FD40000 0x00010000 *
0x0FD50000 0x00010000 ?
0x0FD60000 0x084E0000 +
0x18240000 0x00010000 *
0x18250000 0x00010000 ?
0x18260000 0x00140000 +
0x183A0000 0x00010000 *
0x183B0000 0x00010000 ?
0x183C0000 0x00010000 *
0x183D0000 0x00020000 ?
0x183F0000 0x00010000 *
0x18400000 0x00040000 ?
0x18440000 0x00030000 *
0x18470000 0x00010000 ?
0x18480000 0x00010000 *
0x18490000 0x08040000 ?

[Hohgua]

Photos of system rescue