Greetings friends,

I hope you can help me with my Seagate hard drive.

I recently dropped my Seagate external harddrive. I tried to use the drive following dropping it. It mounts correctly, recognised in WinXP, and opens up to display all the data correctly through Explorer view.

However, where I encounter an issue is when trying to copy / move files. I don't get an error, it just hangs.

I opened the enclosure to see it is a Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1000GB drive. NTFS formatted.

Unfortunately, I only have laptops to work with so I cannot connect this via SATA to a desktop PC.

Perhaps you might be able to suggest what other options I have? Ideally, I think the best solution would be to image / clone the drive to a new drive and work from there. I'm far from an expert so I'm open to all suggestions.

Your help would be appreciated in what I should do / software to use etc (incidentally I have Hirens Boot CD to hand if this should help).

Thanks in advance - I hope I've included all necessary info.

Are you able to access the files already on the drive? If you have any music or videos, do they open and play without skipping or hanging? Also, does the computer become unresponsive when you try to move files?

View yes, access no. I can open each folder and see what is contained within each one. However, when I try to do anything with the files, be it play them or try to move them, (they are all audio files) the drive and/or laptop freezes up - the computer becomes unresponsive for a few minutes.

have you checked the drive in SeaTools? How about something like HDD Observer.

considering it was dropped, and it is a Seagate, could be the heads

@hpjanus,

Since the drive was dropped, it is surprising that you're able to read anything from it. There are several different types of internal damage that could have resulted from that event. I work elsewhere in the data storage industry, not in DR, so here are my comments to try to assist you - consider them or not, as you wish.

If the data is valuable, then I recommend that you stop now; do not keep powering-on the drive; and consult a professional. Otherwise you risk turning a potentially-recoverable situation, into an unrecoverable one. I don't know a professional to recommend in Germany, but perhaps other members can recommend someone, if you request that.

If the data is not valuable, and if you have considered the risks of DIY and if you accept those risks and responsibility for the consequences, then I politely disagree with the previous recommendations of further diagnosis in this situation. We have seen people "diagnose their failing drives to death" here before.

As you said, your only (but still risky!) DIY option in this situation would be to attempt to clone the drive onto another 1TB or larger drive (or equivalent filesystem space, though I don't recommend that, due to the complexities during some later processes). I sometimes use at least 2 copies of the original clone, depending on exactly what I'm going to do with the clone, but it's a matter of personal preference and risk reduction. The point is that you need plenty of disk space.

Unfortunately, based on what you currently report, you may not be able to successfully clone all of the drive, or the drive may fail catastrophically (and perhaps permanently!) part way through any cloning attempt - that's why you need to consider the value of the data before starting this. That's also why you shouldn't perform further diagnosis, as that also risks provoking further problems due to the internal damage, and yet diagnosis itself doesn't recover any of the data.

IMHO you are increasing your risk of less-successful cloning by being limited to USB connections. You could spend some money on a suitable Cardbus or ExpressCard SATA adapter for your laptop and connect the failing drive using that if your Seagate drive enclosure doesn't do encryption. I don't use Seagate enclosures, so I don't know whether that issue affects you. If you need help checking, then post a close-up photo of the USB-SATA adapter board from the Seagate enclosure, component side up (taking care to avoid further damage due to static / ESD). Or perhaps someone familiar with those enclosures can comment...

I have written many times about available cloning utilities, and how you have a choice depending on your budget, skill (e.g. with different OS), expectations of support, urgency etc. etc. I recommend that you spend a few hours searching the forum for previouds discussions on the topics of "clone" or "cloning", to get some ideas about your available options.

Whatever cloning utility you choose to use. I suggest that you practice using it to clone a different disk first, so that you get familiar with that utility. Also note that when cloning, you may need to change the various parameters for optimal success (within what is achievable with DIY). The automatic / default settings in most cloning utilities are not necessarily optimal for all situations - drives can (mis-)behave in many different ways, and those can require different treatment for the best chance of success. With non-commercial cloning utilities, your available support in those situations (and others) is obviously limited (or at least different to commercial support).

Good luck with whatever you decide!

Thank you all for your kind responses so far.

Vulcan, I am in full agreement with you. I haven't run SeaTools as I was afraid I could further damage the unit. I want to get as much feedback as to what I should do next before I actually go and do anything.

Admittedly, I'm not worried about losing the data. All my important files are kept on my server in a RAID config so as to keep everything safely duplicated so I'm more than willing to DIY this job myself.

Where would you recommend I go from here?

Thanks for the update and confirmation that you accept the risks and the consequences of your DIY attempt.


I don't know enough about you or your requirements, to know what to recommend e.g. if you are inexperienced with Linux/Unix then that makes some options less appropriate for you; if you want a commercial level of support, then that makes some options less appropriate for you; if you don't want to spend any money then that makes some options less appropriate for you etc. etc.). As I said before, the topic of cloning has been discussed many times before on this forum. There is no one option that fits everyone's requirements, so you have choices, which I recommend you research and think about.

My suggestions were mostly included in my previous reply - in summary, my approach would include:

- investigate your Seagate enclosure for signs of built-in encryption (check the USB-SATA chip and Google for info on whatever you find), and realise that if it using encryption, you will need to perform additional steps after the cloning, even in the best case - in the worst case, you may be unable to clone parts of the disk which vital to the decryption and hence may be unable to decrypt whatever else you do clone;
- prepare storage to hold a clone (and, I suggest, also for another "working copy");
- consider your budget and preference about whether to invest money getting more hardware which may help with getting a clone (e.g. a SATA adapter for your laptop, or even a whole desktop PC), but which may turn out to be unnecessary, if your clone fails catastrophically anyway (for example);
- review previous discussions about cloning software (e.g. search this forum and be prepared to spend several hours doing that), then consider your choices depending on your own personal criteria (budget, skills required, desired support, pros and cons of different OS etc.);
- note that your choice of interface hardware could influence your choice of cloning software (e.g. one concern I would have, is whether DOS-based cloning software supports a SATA Cardbus adapter);
- practice with that cloning software using a different disk pretending to be the "problem" disk, until you are confident in your abilities with that software.

Then actually try to clone your "problem" disk - remember that your first attempt could be your last one before the disk dies, so the more prepared you are, the greater the chance of cloning something successfully before the disk dies.

My one recommendation is that I would only use Windows-based cloning software, and attach the "problem" disk via its USB interface, as a last resort. Based on what I have seen, heard & experienced, almost anything else would have a greater chance of success than that combination, but alternatives would also likely be more difficult to use.

Those are just my views. Other people may prefer a different approach. As always, YMMV whatever you do Good luck!