I have a Seagate HDD 120GB Barracuda 7200.7 Hard Drive (IDE).
My primary HDD is 500GB Western Digital drive (SATA), in which I have the OS installed.

Recently whenever I boot windows, the boot process is too slow it says one of the partition in my Seagate drive needs to be checked even if I allow it run, it never completes. I could skip the disk check and continue with boot process.. but it takes quite long time. I could copy data from the Seagate drive but it is exteremely slow !

From DOS I can do a DIR command for the problematic partition in the Seagate HDD, files are listed quite fast.. but it gets stuck at displaying the free space, I have to press Ctrl - C.

I can format this drive if that would help, but I have some data to be copied from this drive before I do so.

Below is HDDScan S.M.A.R.T. Report for the Seagate HDD...

Model: ST3120022A
Firmware: 8.01
LBA: 234441648

Report By: HDDScan for Windows version 3.1
Report Date: 14/07/2012 7:25:29 AM


Num Attribute Name Value Worst Raw(hex) Threshold

001 Raw Read Error Rate 049 045 00000C27-0944 006

003 Spin Up Time 097 096 00000000-0000 000

004 Start/Stop Count 100 100 00000000-00A1 020

005 Reallocation Sector Count 071 071 00000000-0490 036

007 Seek Error Rate 083 060 00000D68-D30F 030

009 PowerOn Hours Count 094 094 00000000-156C 000

010 Spin Retry Count 100 100 00000000-0000 097

012 Device Power Cycle Count 092 092 00000000-216F 020

194 HDA Temperature 041 052 41 C 000

195 Hardware ECC Recovered 049 045 00000C27-0944 000

197 Current Pending Sector Count 100 100 00000000-000E 000

198 Uncorrectable Sector Count 100 100 00000000-000E 000

199 UltraDMA CRC Error Count 200 199 00000000-0003 000

200 Write Error Rate 100 253 00000000-0000 000

202 Data Address Mark Errors 100 253 00000000-0000 000

Search on bad sectors in general and then in the forum using the search function to get an idea of what needs to be done.

The drive could also have begun developing a read-write mechanism problem. Though there is no easy way to check without advanced data recovery tools, you can read upon MHDD, run a scan and look for certain error patterns.

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Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

Backup your data first. The best to do this is sector by sector copy to the drive with at least the same capacity. there is free utility DMDE. But if you want to take a risk, try file copying from Windows first, it is more convenient.

Then use MHDD as above. 1st step is default scan 2xF4 to get general view on disk condition, then with erase delays option would be next step to see if delays can be removed.

Stop tring to fix drive by checkdisk. Damage is beyond file system.

I tried to recover with DMDE, but it doesnt seem to work for the files I wanted to copy.

I tried running the MHDD program from UBCD (Ultimate Boot CD), somehow it is not detecting my drive at all, though the BIOS detects my drive and I could also boot from it.

I tried the following, for MHDD to detect it :
1. started MHDD with /enableprimary -> still didnt detect my drive.
2. connocted my HDD to the slave connector in the IDE Cable.. didnt work

Please help me, how do I get my drive detected in MHDD.

Also, I ran the Seagate Seatools scan and the short test failed.

From the HDDScan log above, will it possible that I can repair my drive and get it back into a normal working condition ? So that I can use it for storing some data, which will not be critical for me

I don't use DMDE, but your description "doesnt seem to work" is unlikely to be enough detail for anyone who uses DMDE to help you with that.

In my job (which is not DR, but is elsewhere in the data storage industry), I use ddrescue for disk cloning. However unless you have Lunix/Unix experience, it's probably not easy (and may have increased risk of user error) for you to use that. If DMDE and ddrescue are not helpful for you, there are other cloning utilities available - your choice depends on several factors. Search the forum for previous discussions about cloning.


Personally I don't agree with scanning a failing drive with MHDD, until after it has been cloned. Even if you have accepted the risks of DIY recovery attempts (have you considered and accepted that you might make the situation worse?), you risk "diagnosing the drive to death" as we have seen other people do on the forum. If you decide to go ahead with using MHDD then...


MHDD deliberately does not work with slave drives (read its help webpage).

I know your "problem" drive is IDE, but look in the BIOS - what mode is your SATA controller set to? (ATA / legacy / AHCI / something else?)

This is not a Windows support forum, but if you are running Windows XP on that PC, then go to Device Manager, IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller, Primary IDE channel, Properties, Resources - what I/O Ranges and IRQ are listed? Then the same question for the Secondary IDE channel? (if this is shown, below the Primary IDE channel)

In your BIOS setup, how exactly is your "problem" IDE drive described e.g. primary master or something else?


Since the drive fails the Seatools short test, then the drive is faulty according to Seagate's parameters (if it was under warranty, then it would be replaced by them), therefore it is impossible to say that the drive can be in "normal working condition". After you have recovered data from it, the only thing you can do to prolong its life is to zero-fill (i.e. fully overwrite) the drive and regularly montor its SMART data for signs of problems, but the drive is likely to continue deteriorating, and you could lose the data on it. A DR company might be able to refurbish the drive (if you trust them to do it correctly).

It is hard to believe that you can boot from the drive, but utilities cannot see it. Only explanation is by Vulcan, but once again, it is IDE drive, not SATA.

You seem to take care more about drive itself than data, as you have advanced to repair drive despite your backup failed. As Vulcan wrote, chances for repairing drive with data way are slim. If overwriting entire drive doesn't help, there is still a chance it is a firmware corruption, not a head failure. It happens with these drives if contacts between PCB and drive are dirty.
The first step is to clean contacts with soft pencil eraser, then rebuild the entire surface from serial interface using treminal commands. Quite lot of research if you go this route.

@Vulcan, @SAjunky.. Thanks for the reply.

Yes, I am very much able to boot from that Segate drive.. BIOS also detects the drive, motherboard is Abit IP35E. I guess it doesnt support changing the SATA controller mode, may be I would never be able to do a scan with MHDD or ?

Will MHDD scan result help to figure out what the exact problem is whether it is a bad sector or drive mechanical problem ? If not, I will give up my attempt to get a MHDD scan.

Also, even if I boot from my other working SATA drive, I could see this problematic Seagate IDE drive and partitions. But the boot process is too slow.. takes more than 7 mins. I also tried using windows copy.. but it keeps says copying and extremely slow.. but nothing happens if I let it run for 10 mins or more.. It copies only few 100 KBs.

Even with DMDE I had the same problem, there was no progress at all for copy process. Probably I was not patient enough to wait for it to do something

Right now, I am away from that comp. Will post back after a couple of weeks time with updates.

I explained that I didn't recommend using MHDD at this stage. Other members have different views. I was trying to help you to understand why MHDD wasn't recognising your IDE drive (if you decided to use MHDD anyway and if you accepted the risks) by investigating the IDE & SATA controller settings. Since you can't give that information, there is nothing more I can add to my earlier comments.

IMHO your choices now depend on the value of the data to you, your skills and your attitude to the (many) risks of DIY recovery attempts.

Yes, for MHDD you need to change controller mode from AHCI to compatibility mode. However, if you can't make clone with DMDE (which seems to recognise drive), mhdd is not going to help and drive can lock itself during testing. When slow copying in all surface areas, then firmware repair is neccessary.
You need serial terminal adapter to repair firmware, or at least disable SMART before cloning, as one bad sector at SMART updating statistics can be cause of slow copying in all disk areas.

Hey SAjunky,
i've a similar issue with slow sector in all surface on my WD5000AAKX-001CAO
wd5000aakx-001cao-caviar-blue-slow-sectors-issue-t23312.html

Do you think that i can clone it if i disable the smart as you wrote here for Barracuda 7200.7 hard drive?

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My firmware database:
https://mega.nz/folder/O01DkBRI

I tried to disable the smart and clone my WD but unfurtunally it's always slow.
Hope sthdd will have more luck then me

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My firmware database:
https://mega.nz/folder/O01DkBRI

What is that?

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Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

Is the author of this thread

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My firmware database:
https://mega.nz/folder/O01DkBRI

Oh, thanks

_________________
Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

@SAjunky, @michael chiklis

How to disable SMART before copying ?
Can u pls point me to some page which explains how to disable.

Sorry, I tried to search but didnt get a hit.. something said in BIOS I can disable SMART..
Can this be done with Seagate Seatools ?

Sorry for this basic question, but I am a noob

Just tested with Seagate. It works the best when disabled in BIOS.

@SAjunky Thanks for taking time to test it for me!

Unfortunatley, I Could not find this option in my motherboard (Abit IP35E) BIOS to disable SMART Mother Board manual:(

Is the alternate way to disable SMART ? And can I renable it? will disabling SMART cause any other adverse effects, which I need to know before going ahead ?

In MHDD command "smart off"
In HDAT2 beta in Commands/ Features menu, but it doesn't survive reset.

I wasn't successful in turning off SMART.. MHDD doesnt detect my drive as mentioned above.

But I tried the DMDE again today, booting from my other SATA drive. Somehow it is copying faster than last time I tried.. though the progress bar doesnt move at all, it still copies !

Once I am done with copying...

can I go ahead and format the partition which has the problem, booting from my other HDD ?
Will it cause any damage ?

Or should I delete all partitions and start over again with partitioning and formatting ?