Lightning strikes Maxtor and Seagate

[Real_Jose_Pinto]

Hi guys, i have a very strange hdds, Lightning strikes Maxtor and Seagate
Blew majority chips and managed to get it up and running again but all data is GONE, when check using mhdd just like a brand new hard drives.

Both hdd detected as usual no errors.

Anyone have any similar event?

[friend]

but all data is GONE

What does it means.. ?
does complete surface filled with zeros or other digit?

[rameez]

How can all data be gone if Lightning strikes a hdd , did the Lightning damage the pcb or the HDA ?

[Real_Jose_Pinto]

To friend: It means blank, check with victoria results just like a brand new hard disk with unpartition disk.

To rameez: damaged pcb only.

very very strange but thats the fact.

[friend]

To friend: It means blank, check with victoria results just like a brand new hard disk with unpartition disk.

how could know disk is blank as brand new?...i think victoria did not show that..
can you copy frist 20000 sectors to files and saw us ?

[Real_Jose_Pinto]

friend: ok will do that tomorrow thanks

[Samo]

Real_Jose_Pinto
I think Tommy Lee Jones - (Agent K (Kay) - from Men in Black have a hand in this affair You know - the flash tool
Now seriously: If you need the data, then what stand in MBR, BR and backup copies.

[Real_Jose_Pinto]

Here's the winhex shot of the contents. All the way 35h....

[Steve]

Since it is highly unlikely that a lightning strike would actually write to the entire drive , Could the Encode/Decode chip be damaged?
Or possibly the heads aren't actually reading anything , and sending a false signal? Just a thought

[Real_Jose_Pinto]

hi Steve, HDA and PCB has been changed, the lightning strike, blew pcb and preamp.

[hddguy]

It looks like the serial number is displayed wrong also. How does the fw look?

[Real_Jose_Pinto]

hddguy: Yes fw checked...all good.

[Shortscurcuits]

Looks like a new DOD erase procedure, place drive on metal pole during lightning storm!

[Starling]

Even if lightning could erase all the data it would erase the SA as well. But in your case it's not.
So, there are 2 options:
- corruption to translator which is not likely to happen because you have 2 absolutely different drives with the same problem.
- data was initially rewritten before it was "stricken".

[Real_Jose_Pinto]

Starling what do you mean by "data was initially rewritten before it was "stricken". ? Thank's

[Starling]

I mean there is nothing to recover.

[Shortscurcuits]

Hi agree with Starling, though it looks like SA was affected as serial # doesn't show either.

Jose winhex shows nothing for entire drive, on both drives?

Really strange as customer sent in drives for recovery, you would think that they would know if drives were empty. DR makes for expensive repair method!

By the way Starling, are you ready for Thursday night.... semi-finals WOOOOHOOOO!

[Real_Jose_Pinto]

winhex shows nothing for the entire both drives....

[Steve]

do they both show 35's all the way through?
according to the picture you are connected to firewire .. have you
tried connecting straight to ide interface?

[Steve]

Also , while not normally recommended in data recovery situation ,
you might try writing a single sector of maybe all 1' or 0's and then
reboot and re-read that sector to see if it writes correctly
( I would suggest close to the end or the drive)