2.5" Hitachi Travelstar bad blocks/sectors

[mips]

60GB 2.5" Hitachi Travelstar, HTS541060G9AT00, P/N:13G1583, MLC:DA1175, FW:MB30A60A, LBA: 117,208,127

The above drive is configure with 40GB & 17GB NTFS partitions.

According to MHDD LBA errors start at 111933, I dunno where they end as I stopped the scan out of fear of causing damage.
SMART complains about Reallocated Sectors Count & Current Pending Sector Count.

I do however know the second 17GB partition to be without any errors and did a reverse image using dd_rescue as it has the -r option and all data is 100% intact from that partition with zero errors during read and no retries etc.

With all of the above I have come to the conclusion that the electronics & heads are fine but the media must be buggered towards the beginning of the first partition somewhere but I don't know how much.

1. Would it be safe to run a scan with MHDD to determine the extent of the errors or is there another util you recommend?
2. Should I rather just image the first partition and forget about MHDD etc?
3. What imaging tool would you guys advise, I have access to ddrescue, dd_rescue, safecopy & Media Tools?

The drive was removed from an HP nx9010 which used to run really hot, it previously ate a Seagate Momentus & another Hitachi like the above one, all of which I recovered the data from.

Thanks, your input is appreciated.

Cheers
mips

[Alexii]

I see reasonable ammount of HTS54X with bad sectors. Some sort of media degradation. Usually we DDI the hell out of those drives. It is my humble opinion that runing the surface scaner is ok in the sittuation like urs. I meen i had 1 HTS54 with a very bad 1st 2% of the drive and was runing DDI on it for several weeks on and off trying to get the b nodes. Heads survived it no problem.

Oh ur drive is small try imaging with CopyR. Smetimes it works surprisingly good.

[mips]

Oh ur drive is small try imaging with CopyR. Smetimes it works surprisingly good.

Will download CopyR once the copyr.tetroniks.ru site is back up.

Any particular reason you recommend it? Is it better than the utils I mentioned in the OP?

Thanks

[Alexii]

no reason really. I had a bad seagate .11 HDclone showed 54000 bads. DDI got em all. CopyR left ~25k bads. So it seems it performed better then HDclone. =) A lot of ppl love DD_rescue, stick with it =)

[BlackST]

There are a lot of strategies for overriding execssive bads / drive degradation.... it depends on the gear you have at disposal. On TWO specific brands I know better I play with internal parameters

[mips]

There are a lot of strategies for overriding execssive bads / drive degradation.... it depends on the gear you have at disposal. On TWO specific brands I know better I play with internal parameters

Care to elaborate? I don't have anything like Deepspar, Atola etc at my disposal.


I'm currently running a scan in MHDD to determine the extend of the bad blocks. Once I know how many & where they are I'm going to image around them. I hope they are limited to the system area as that is kinda where they start.

[BlackST]

It's like trying to fix an engine with a screwdriver only... So you have to be happy with the results you get, there's nothing else you can do without hardware tools and know how about drive firmware - each brand.

[mips]

MHDD Log files:
ADVLOG.BIN: http://rapidshare.com/files/420310357/ADVLOG.BIN
SMART.LOG: http://pastebin.com/Ptk1pQ0y
MHDD.LOG: http://pastebin.com/ahazvkqr


Would erasing the P-List and rebuilding it possibly help?

[fzabkar]

Will download CopyR once the copyr.tetroniks.ru site is back up.

Try http://www.copyr.pl/pliki/copyrE13.zip

[mips]

Will download CopyR once the copyr.tetroniks.ru site is back up.

Try http://www.copyr.pl/pliki/copyrE13.zip

Thanks, I already managed to download it. The menus I cannot read though as they are gibberish funny characters, probably need russian language support in dos or something like that.

[mips]

Edit: Thanks, you linked me to the English version which I did not notice, much appreciated

[BlackST]

Would erasing the P-List and rebuilding it possibly help?

No, and in any case how would you do it?

[mips]

Would erasing the P-List and rebuilding it possibly help?

No, and in any case how would you do it?

Actually meant G-list but anyway.

You come across like those kids in cliques from school days. I obviously don't have the answers that's why I came here, to possibly learn something, well that's what I was hoping anyway. You with your superior knowledge on the other seem to revel in challenging the knowledge of those that know less than you as belittling them makes you feel superior. Meanwhile hoarding information & telling people to call a DR company, I'm not interested in calling a DR company as I see it as a learning opportunity as it's not a client drive or anything like that. If that is how you get your kicks then cool, good for you

You could have just said "No that's not possible, reasons being x, y & z etc but very few people here seem to want to do that or share anything. Thanks to those of you who do

Sorry, I'm not trying to be rude or anything but sometimes the mind boggles wrt peoples responses. If the car industry or any other industry functioned like the DR field then there would be no Haynes manuals etc etc etc. I can only put this down to protectionism and fear. If someone borks their hd with info gained on forums then so be it if they have been warned of the risks, hell there is far worse info out there like 'run spinrite', 'install xyz utility etc'.

People here have the knowledge and opportunity to get the correct info across if they chose to do so.

Thank you.

[fzabkar]

You come across like those kids in cliques from school days. I obviously don't have the answers that's why I came here, to possibly learn something, well that's what I was hoping anyway. You with your superior knowledge on the other seem to revel in challenging the knowledge of those that know less than you as belittling them makes you feel superior. Meanwhile hoarding information & telling people to call a DR company, I'm not interested in calling a DR company as I see it as a learning opportunity as it's not a client drive or anything like that. If that is how you get your kicks then cool, good for you ;)

You could have just said "No that's not possible, reasons being x, y & z etc but very few people here seem to want to do that or share anything. Thanks to those of you who do ;)

Sorry, I'm not trying to be rude or anything but sometimes the mind boggles wrt peoples responses. If the car industry or any other industry functioned like the DR field then there would be no Haynes manuals etc etc etc. I can only put this down to protectionism and fear. If someone borks their hd with info gained on forums then so be it if they have been warned of the risks, hell there is far worse info out there like 'run spinrite', 'install xyz utility etc'.

People here have the knowledge and opportunity to get the correct info across if they chose to do so.

Thank you.

Ditto.

[guru]

After you have recovered your data->

I don't use MHDD but you could try scan+REMAP (?) and then after that read the OEM manual from HGST's website, you may find something interesting inside ;o)

[BlackST]

There are no 3rd party manuals for repairing hard drives and how to get access their guts beside simple silly failures, but plenty of 1st hand info that kill drives and data and keep the whole industry alive. Live with it.

[BlackST]

@guru, Mhdd remap on Hitachi transform usually a bad, not SE, into 'hiccup'... you know!

[mips]

There are no 3rd party manuals for repairing hard drives and how to get access their guts beside simple silly failures, but plenty of 1st hand info that kill drives and data and keep the whole industry alive. Live with it.

Neither were there Haynes manuals for cars or DIY books out there for various fields. The motor industry initially did not take kindly to Haynes but eventually even started giving him information. There might not be any 3rd party books on DR out there but there sure as hell is enough knowledge out there to create one, you don't even have to write a book, a central repository like a wiki or something would be even better than a book. Collaboration also helps in speeding up finding solutions to problems and developing new technology, science & research has never worked well in isolation but thrives in collaboration. Proprietary things like PC3000 etc also does not contribute much to learning as it's pretty much follow instructions & click mouse, everything is still pretty much closed to the 'user', I'll take a hacker that knows machine code / assembly language using a hex editor over a point & click dude using a tailored application any day.

This notion that knowledge is harmful is nonsense, imagine if people like Nobel, Einstein, Fermi etc adopted that attitude, we would have empty libraries and all be a lot less informed. Hell, even high school chemistry knowledge can be dangerous and kill someone.

The first hand knowledge is out there and people use it because they know no better and even commercial companies are leading them down the garden path with their so called quick fix software which causes harm. But yet those in the know will not refute this information, they keep silent rather.

There is a difference between living with something and accepting it.

[BlackST]

Sorry to ruin your day : pc3k is just one solution for simplifying things at high price. If you study enough you can perfectly do without and make your own, if you can. Accept this as living with it is different.
I don't give away the info you need because I repair drives and do DR for a living, but I can trade this (repair professionally Travelstars like brand new ) for a solution for Seagate 7200.9 and 10 non data destructive and without specialized tools like pc3k and co. for unability to load OVL 1A - weak head - no SS.

[mips]

Will download CopyR once the copyr.tetroniks.ru site is back up.

Try http://www.copyr.pl/pliki/copyrE13.zip

I had to setup another PC to use CopyR as my current MB only has a single PATA connector and SATA drives are not seen from copyr (or MTP) probably due to my onboard controller.

Anyways, now that I have the PC up and running CopyR seems to be reading the bad blocks without errors if I'm reading the output of copyr correctly. Previously LBA errors started at 111933 and CopyR so far says Current sector:118976 of 117210240; Errors:0

If I'm indeed understanding this correctly what allows CopyR to image the drive (so far) without errors where other utils fail?

This whole process seems very slow though but no more so than when using MTP etc.