"Blank" or "Empty" Media files after HDD data recovery

[Glauco]

Hi everybody!

I´m in Brazil, i have a Seagate HDD with a lot of Bad clusters. I´m making data recovery with Stellar Phoenix, R-studio, Sea tools, Wondershare etc...

I've done data recovery several times successfully. Something different is happening now.

All softwares recognizes HDD, recognizes lost data and when i do the file recovery, it takes the space (Example: the media file has 1gb. It takes 1GB for the file in my new HDD [copy HDD, not lost data HDD]) but the media file comes "empty" or "blank". A video file comes with "black" and no áudio.


Has anyone had this? Can sombody help me with some information?

I've never seen this before. I used the HDD regenerator and It shows me a lot of bad clusters.


Apparently the empty file are in the areas of this bad clusters.


Can this have to do with the fact that the file is blank? If so, in what way?


This is it, I await your friends' help

Thank you very much!

Glauco

[fzabkar]

Can you show us the SMART report with a tool such as CrystalDiskInfo?

http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalDiskInfo/index-e.html

[data-medics]

I've never seen this before. I used the HDD regenerator and It shows me a lot of bad clusters.

First off, snap that CD in half and don't ever think of using it again. That's refurbishing software, and is well known to cause data loss.

It could be a hardware issue preventing the drive from reading the sectors. I've seen drives that could read data sequentially, but if you try to access a specific file they go stupid and return all 0's. Usually I think it's a result of bad sectors in the filesystem.

Start by getting a clone of the drive using ddresuce (guide here). This is what you should have done from the start instead of running HDD regenerator. Had you done that you'd have a copy now you could work with instead of having just strained the drive needlessly.

[Glauco]

Can you show us the SMART report with a tool such as CrystalDiskInfo?

http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalDiskInfo/index-e.html

Here is:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
(2) ST4000DM000-1F2168
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Enclosure : ST4000DM 000-1F2168 USB Device (V=152D, P=2338, jm1) - st
Model : ST4000DM000-1F2168
Firmware : CC52
Serial Number : W300F4KH
Disk Size : 4000,7 GB (8,4/137,4/4000,7/1801,7)
Buffer Size : Unknown
Queue Depth : 32
# of Sectors : 7814037168
Rotation Rate : 5900 RPM
Interface : USB (Serial ATA)
Major Version : ATA8-ACS
Minor Version : ATA8-ACS version 4
Transfer Mode : SATA/150 | SATA/600
Power On Hours : 6011 hours
Power On Count : 1298 times
Temperature : 29 C (84 F)
Health Status : Healthy
Features : S.M.A.R.T., APM, 48bit LBA, NCQ
APM Level : 8080h [ON]
AAM Level : ----
Drive Letter : I: J: K: L: M: N: O:

-- S.M.A.R.T. --------------------------------------------------------------
ID Cur Wor Thr RawValues(6) Attribute Name
01 119 _99 __6 00000D104918 Read Error Rate
03 _94 _91 __0 000000000000 Spin-Up Time
04 _95 _95 _20 000000001520 Start/Stop Count
05 100 100 _10 000000000000 Reallocated Sectors Count
07 _71 _60 _30 000000C3DE78 Seek Error Rate
09 _94 _94 __0 00000000177B Power-On Hours
0A 100 100 _97 000000000000 Spin Retry Count
0C _99 _99 _20 000000000512 Device Power Cycle Count
B7 100 100 __0 000000000000 Vendor Specific
B8 _92 _92 _99 000000000008 End-to-End Error
BB 100 100 __0 000000000000 Reported Uncorrectable Errors
BC 100 _95 __0 001D001D0035 Command Timeout
BD 100 100 __0 000000000000 High Fly Writes
BE _71 _48 _45 00001E1A001D Airflow Temperature
BF 100 100 __0 000000000000 G-Sense Error Rate
C0 100 100 __0 000000000628 Power-off Retract Count
C1 _82 _82 __0 0000000093B8 Load/Unload Cycle Count
C2 _29 _52 __0 00120000001D Temperature
C5 100 100 __0 000000000000 Current Pending Sector Count
C6 100 100 __0 000000000000 Uncorrectable Sector Count
C7 200 188 __0 000000000DC5 UltraDMA CRC Error Count
F0 100 253 __0 9DAD00000798 Head Flying Hours
F1 100 253 __0 000335D61DF2 Total Host Writes
F2 100 253 __0 000970FB2E8D Total Host Reads


The complete report is bigger. Do you need the complete report or is this enought?

Thank you!

Glauco

[Glauco]

I've never seen this before. I used the HDD regenerator and It shows me a lot of bad clusters.

First off, snap that CD in half and don't ever think of using it again. That's refurbishing software, and is well known to cause data loss.

It could be a hardware issue preventing the drive from reading the sectors. I've seen drives that could read data sequentially, but if you try to access a specific file they go stupid and return all 0's. Usually I think it's a result of bad sectors in the filesystem.

Start by getting a clone of the drive using ddresuce (guide here). This is what you should have done from the start instead of running HDD regenerator. Had you done that you'd have a copy now you could work with instead of having just strained the drive needlessly.

OK, HDD regenerator was deleted form my computer.

I´ll try ddrescue. I´m learning with my mistakes.

After I´ll create the copy, what can i do to recover complete files?

What software can I use to identify bad sectors and recover them?

Thank you so much for attention,

Glauco

[F_ARG]

Glauco, When you used recovery softwares, could you get any good file? Can you upload one of the empty/wrong files (small ones)? Maybe the hdd hung up when reach a bad sector and softwares lost comunication with it.
Ddrescue is a good practice for data recovery, go for it.

Best!

F.

[Glauco]

Glauco, When you used recovery softwares, could you get any good file? Can you upload one of the empty/wrong files (small ones)? Maybe the hdd hung up when reach a bad sector and softwares lost comunication with it.
Ddrescue is a good practice for data recovery, go for it.

Best!

F.

Hi F_ARG!

Yes, few files are recovered correctly. Very few, especially some photos, but very few indeed.

I´wiil upload a empty file.

Is there a ddrescue version for windows?

I've done recovery other times and in this case, I noticed that when it is recovering the files the process is much faster.

What can indicate a problem with the HDD reading? Any other possibilities?

Is there a DDrescue for Windows?

Some similar for windows?

Thank you very much for attention

[data-medics]

OK, HDD regenerator was deleted form my computer.

I´ll try ddrescue. I´m learning with my mistakes.

After I´ll create the copy, what can i do to recover complete files?

What software can I use to identify bad sectors and recover them?

Thank you so much for attention,

Glauco

Don't get me wrong, HDD Regenerator may have its place if you've just got a really old drive you might want to try to refurbish and contains no necessary data. It's just not something that should be used when data is at stake.

Identifying bad sectors is easy, just run ddrescue and see if it's hitting any bad blocks or just reading sequentially. It'll automate the process of jumping around areas of bad sectors and go back afterward to try and read as much as possible in those areas. As to getting data back from within the bad sectors, if a sector is really bad it's unlikely you'll be able to read it. A hardware imaging tool such as DeepSpar Disk Imager or PC-3000 can certainly read a lot more sectors if used properly than you'll get using software. But, even then, you'll often have a certain amount that's just unreadable. The good news is that a large drive will have a number of sectors just into the billions. So a handful of lost sectors may not amount to much actual lost data. The trick is to image as much as will read, then perform you logical recovery (running software) against the copy. This usually leads to a much better recovery result.

[Glauco]

I'm trying with ddrescue but with no good results for now. Ddrescue reads the HD and initially identifies a bad cluster. From there it only indicates what the photo shows until the final reading of the partition.

Am I doing something wrong? Any configuration? Or as soon as ddrescue identifies the initial bad cluster it can not read anything else? The curious thing is that R-studio and Stellar Phoenix identify the whole root, retrieve the files, but empty.
At the end, ddrescue shows me the message of the second photo.
Can somebody help me? Thank you very much.

Attachments

[maximus]

First, you are using partitions as source and destination (source /dev/sda5, destination /dev/sdc5). This is usually not a good idea, you should always clone the entire disk (source /dev/sda, destination /dev/sdc).

Second, ddrescue did not read any data at all. Maybe if you try to clone the whole drive you will get different results. It would be interesting to see if it hits a sudden point where it just stops reading.

Due to the high speed for which ddrescue processed it, the errors were not normal sector errors.

There are a couple possible reasons no data was read.
1) When a bad spot was hit, the drive faulted out. Ddrescue has no way to tell if this happened.
2) There is a firmware issue with the translator.

Your SMART data does not show any reallocated or pending sectors (hddregenerator can't clean that up, can it?). And this is a Seagate DM series drive, which everyone on here will tell you are junk and have a high failure rate. You can keep trying, but this case may likely require professional data recovery. The more you thrash on it, the more damage can be done.

[jermy]

IMHO you should stop hammering the drive using a PC/software, its time to send it to a DR pro, who have the right knowledge and equipment to handle it properly, (the more so if its not your drive and doesn't belong to you, is it ?).

[Glauco]

First, you are using partitions as source and destination (source /dev/sda5, destination /dev/sdc5). This is usually not a good idea, you should always clone the entire disk (source /dev/sda, destination /dev/sdc).

Second, ddrescue did not read any data at all. Maybe if you try to clone the whole drive you will get different results. It would be interesting to see if it hits a sudden point where it just stops reading.

Due to the high speed for which ddrescue processed it, the errors were not normal sector errors.

There are a couple possible reasons no data was read.
1) When a bad spot was hit, the drive faulted out. Ddrescue has no way to tell if this happened.
2) There is a firmware issue with the translator.

Your SMART data does not show any reallocated or pending sectors (hddregenerator can't clean that up, can it?). And this is a Seagate DM series drive, which everyone on here will tell you are junk and have a high failure rate. You can keep trying, but this case may likely require professional data recovery. The more you thrash on it, the more damage can be done.

OK. I´m newbie in data recovery, learning with my mistakes. I am thankful for any help of yours.

What is the best way to clone an entire disk? I will try it.

Ddrescue quickly reads the entire partition. It registers 1 bad sector, and after that, no more data is read.

About the second reason, how can i verify about the firmware issue with the translator? (what translator? What is the "translator"? I don´t know what is the translator.)

Can somebody help me?


Again, I want to thank everyone for their help. I'm very grateful.

Thank you so much!

[Glauco]

IMHO you should stop hammering the drive using a PC/software, its time to send it to a DR pro, who have the right knowledge and equipment to handle it properly, (the more so if its not your drive and doesn't belong to you, is it ?).

The drive is mine, I'm enjoying learning about it. I want to become a pro.

Thank you very much for your advice.

[maximus]

IMHO you should stop hammering the drive using a PC/software, its time to send it to a DR pro, who have the right knowledge and equipment to handle it properly, (the more so if its not your drive and doesn't belong to you, is it ?).

The drive is mine, I'm enjoying learning about it. I want to become a pro.

Thank you very much for your advice.

The big question is, do you need the data from the drive? If so, then I think you need to seek professional data recovery. But if the data is not important, and you are willing to loose it, then you can continue to experiment on the drive.

[jermy]

Ddrescue quickly reads the entire partition. It registers 1 bad sector, and after that, no more data is read.

It seems that this 1 bad sector puts the drive in BSY state or whatever, since its your drive, then your data your choice... I hope you don't have valuable data on it

That said
Try to clone the drive in reverse to avoid that bad sector, or even better, I would suggest - since you said there is a lot bad sectors - use dd_rhelp, its designed for a case like yours - when there is bad sectors that cause the drive not to respond - the next time you launch it, it skips automatically that area and continues from another area (or in reverse).

Again a pro DR who uses hardware imaging would be your better choice for an unstable drive like yours but...

Regarding the translator you asked, "spildit", here he comes, and will provide with some valuable stuff to read about that.

[Glauco]

IMHO you should stop hammering the drive using a PC/software, its time to send it to a DR pro, who have the right knowledge and equipment to handle it properly, (the more so if its not your drive and doesn't belong to you, is it ?).

The drive is mine, I'm enjoying learning about it. I want to become a pro.

Thank you very much for your advice.

The big question is, do you need the data from the drive? If so, then I think you need to seek professional data recovery. But if the data is not important, and you are willing to loose it, then you can continue to experiment on the drive.

OK! Thank you very much for help!

[Glauco]

Ddrescue quickly reads the entire partition. It registers 1 bad sector, and after that, no more data is read.

It seems that this 1 bad sector puts the drive in BSY state or whatever, since its your drive, then your data your choice... I hope you don't have valuable data on it

That said
Try to clone the drive in reverse to avoid that bad sector, or even better, I would suggest - since you said there is a lot bad sectors - use dd_rhelp, its designed for a case like yours - when there is bad sectors that cause the drive not to respond - the next time you launch it, it skips automatically that area and continues from another area (or in reverse).

Again a pro DR who uses hardware imaging would be your better choice for an unstable drive like yours but...

Regarding the translator you asked, "spildit", here he comes, and will provide with some valuable stuff to read about that.

It finds this bad cluster after reading the entire partition quickly. Apparently the disk continues to spin during the entire process, even after it has found the bad cluster. A disk in BSY state keeps spinning?

Thank you

[Glauco]

Hello there !!!

Regarding the translator :

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=176

Translator, Defect Lists and Bad Sectors :


Regarding your drive - I would get something like MHDD or Victoria and scan/verify the first LBAs, the middle of the drive and the end of it (LBA space). This will show if you have full access to the LBA range or if you are stuck with partial access only. If you can scan the start of the drive but you can't verify from one LBA till the end you have translator problems. If you can scan the last LBAs then the drive might hit a bad sector and get stuck.

I would then apply a sysfile 093 patch : - http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=1842

Get a TTL adaptor - http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=192

Connect it to the drive like this - http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=193

And apply the CTRL+Z to gain access to F3 T> and input the following commands :

F"READ_SPARING_ENABLED",0,22
F"WRITE_SPARING_ENABLED",0,22
F"OFFLINE_SPARING_ENABLED",0,22
F"DAR_ENABLED",0,22
F"DISABLE_IDLE_ACTIVITY",1,22
F"BGMS_DISABLE_DATA_REFRESH",1,22
F"ABORT_PREFETCH",1,22
F"READ_LOOKAHEAD_DISABLED_ON_POWER_UP",1,22
F"READ_CACHING_DISABLED_ON_POWER_UP",1,22

F"RWRecoveryFlags",00,22
F"BGMSFlags",00,22
F"PerformanceFlags",043C,22
F"MediaCacheControl",00,22

Now use something like a DDI4, PC3K DE, HRT-DRE, MRT Pro DE, whatever and image the drive by hardware like this :

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php? ... 841#p10585

Lacking hardware assisted tools you will have to use either ddrescue, HDDSuperClone or Prosoft Media Tools.

If you can image the drive with that you can run the logic recovery software on the image. If the grive gets stuck or you can't retrieve valid data with software only sollutions then you will have to send in the drive to a professional or at least to someone with tools to image the drive.

Regards.

OK, I´ll try all your intructions.

Thank you so much for attention and help!

[pcimage]

Ddrescue quickly reads the entire partition. It registers 1 bad sector, and after that, no more data is read.

It seems that this 1 bad sector puts the drive in BSY state or whatever, since its your drive, then your data your choice... I hope you don't have valuable data on it

That said
Try to clone the drive in reverse to avoid that bad sector, or even better, I would suggest - since you said there is a lot bad sectors - use dd_rhelp, its designed for a case like yours - when there is bad sectors that cause the drive not to respond - the next time you launch it, it skips automatically that area and continues from another area (or in reverse).

Again a pro DR who uses hardware imaging would be your better choice for an unstable drive like yours but...

Regarding the translator you asked, "spildit", here he comes, and will provide with some valuable stuff to read about that.

It finds this bad cluster after reading the entire partition quickly. Apparently the disk continues to spin during the entire process, even after it has found the bad cluster. A disk in BSY state keeps spinning?

Thank you

Yes it does

[Glauco]

Ddrescue quickly reads the entire partition. It registers 1 bad sector, and after that, no more data is read.

It seems that this 1 bad sector puts the drive in BSY state or whatever, since its your drive, then your data your choice... I hope you don't have valuable data on it

That said
Try to clone the drive in reverse to avoid that bad sector, or even better, I would suggest - since you said there is a lot bad sectors - use dd_rhelp, its designed for a case like yours - when there is bad sectors that cause the drive not to respond - the next time you launch it, it skips automatically that area and continues from another area (or in reverse).

Again a pro DR who uses hardware imaging would be your better choice for an unstable drive like yours but...

Regarding the translator you asked, "spildit", here he comes, and will provide with some valuable stuff to read about that.

It finds this bad cluster after reading the entire partition quickly. Apparently the disk continues to spin during the entire process, even after it has found the bad cluster. A disk in BSY state keeps spinning?

Thank you

Yes it does

Do You think Victoria a good tool to verify this?