Seagate 7200.12 500 GB: Anyone in US do actual repair?

[tksa2]

I had the above drive in a RAID 0 array. I don't actually have anything totally irreplaceable on it. However, I would be willing to pay a reasonable fee to have it repaired or cloned, block-for-block. There are many places that will copy the data off the RAID array, but I couldn't find any place that will actually repair or clone the drive. Are there any places in the US that will either repair or clone the drive?

The reason I actually want to repair or clone the drive is that even though the data is not irreplaceable (most of it is backed up), it would take me a significant amount of time to reinstall the OS, apps, set things up, etc. If the drive were repaired or cloned, I could just plop it in and reboot.

If there are no places in the US that will do this, what is the chance that PCB swap will work (assuming of course that I can find an identical PCB)? I have read in various places that some drives have data stored on the PCB that is specific to each actual drive (presumably to account for manufacturing variations). I bought a number of drives at the same time, so I think there is a good chance that I could find an identical PCB. Even if the PCB swap just worked for a while, it might work long enough to allow me to use Ghost to ghost the system to new hard drives.

I of course realize that all this assumes that there is no data corruption. If there is data corruption, then I would most likely have to reinstall the OS anyway.

Any advice or information would be welcome.

(By the way, is there any relationship between hddpros.com and hddgurus.com?)

[Zero Alpha]

Any data recovery firm would be able to do this for you.

[tksa2]

Any data recovery firm would be able to do this for you.

I'm sure that they all have the ability to do it, but the two that I called today said that they don't do that. Of course, I couldn't speak to an actual technician, but had to speak to some customer service rep. So for those larger companies the problem is getting through the bureaucracy.

I did, however, receive a PM from one company in the US that said that they could do that, so that's one lead I have.

[BlackST]

If the problem is LOGICAL (I.e. reconstruction of data / reorganisation) it is "common job", if the drive needs repair it's a little bit tougher for "common repair shops" but every decently seasoned pro does it.... It's everyday job.

[drc]

They may have thought you were insisting on having the original drive itself repaired and returned to you in working condition. If that's the case then no, I'd say that's not normal.

But having it cloned? I can't understand why anyone would have a problem with that.

[jono-ats]

Contact Doomer through this forum. I'm sure he can handle a 7200.12.

Jon

[tksa2]

They may have thought you were insisting on having the original drive itself repaired and returned to you in working condition. If that's the case then no, I'd say that's not normal.

But having it cloned? I can't understand why anyone would have a problem with that.

I think it was just because I was talking to people who had no technical knowledge and were just reading a script.

Okay, so say that the drive can be cloned to another drive of the exact same size, block-for-block. Will I be able to swap it for the original drive in the two-drive RAID 0 array that I had? In other words, will the RAID controller realize that it's not the original drive (maybe by looking at serial numbers), and refuse to use it? It's an Intel integrated RAID controller.

(For those that have asked, it is recognized by motherboard BIOS (and spins up, I think). In the Intel Matrix Storage Manager BIOS screen, the model and serial number are still listed under Physical Drives, but under Status, it says "Error occurred".)

[msurgeon]

The key here is that a sector-by-sector clone of your disk may not produce a bootable RAID because of a few (or many) bad areas on the disk surface. If these errors occur in Windows system areas then the RAID may not be bootable even if 99.9% of the sectors are successfully cloned. The only way to know if it works is to try it after completion of cloning. The point is that you will certainly be charged for the procedure even if it turns out that the system is not bootable. If you are willing to live with this risk then there should be no shortage of people, including us, who can do the cloning for you.

[tksa2]

The key here is that a sector-by-sector clone of your disk may not produce a bootable RAID because of a few (or many) bad areas on the disk surface. If these errors occur in Windows system areas then the RAID may not be bootable even if 99.9% of the sectors are successfully cloned. The only way to know if it works is to try it after completion of cloning. The point is that you will certainly be charged for the procedure even if it turns out that the system is not bootable. If you are willing to live with this risk then there should be no shortage of people, including us, who can do the cloning for you.

Yes, I realize that it will almost certainly not work if there are any lost sectors. So my question is: will it work if there are no lost sectors? Does the RAID controller store the configuration in on-board flash, or is it all stored on disk? Since this is an el-cheapo integrated RAID controller, if I were designing it, I would store it on disk, redundantly on all disks, and probably at multiple locations on each disk.

[msurgeon]

If all sectors are successfully copied there should be no problem with it working properly. The new drive has to be set to match the LBA count of the original. The controller shouldn't care about anything else.

[drc]

I don't see where you have said what the actual problem with the drive is... this could also be a factor.