It all started a few years ago when my few days old WD5000AAKS lost partitions. It began my interesting in DIY data recovery. One of the free DIY advice was HDD Regenerator. Of course, it was not helpful, although they all swore that it "rescues" the data. Problem with partitions solved easily but the case led to my interest in hard drives. I asked questions in this forum to "arrogant, naughty and bad guys who earn huge money" about "so simple things like recovering data" on which they, of course, did not answer. I soon realized why.

After a few years, once again ran into a text in which it also claims that HDD Regenerator recovers data and there is also a stand on the site by author:

- No data losses in any mode
- Corrupted data recovery (making unreadable data readable)
- Working with any operating system without losses of any data
- The HDD Regenerator can repair damaged hard disks without affecting or changing existing data. As a result, previously unreadable and inaccessible information is restored.
- Almost 60% of all hard drives damaged with bad sectors have an incorrectly magnetized disk surface. We have developed an algorithm which is used to repair damaged disk surfaces. This technology is hardware independent, it supports many types of hard drives and repairs damage that even low-level disk formatting cannot repair. As a result, previously unreadable information will be restored. Because of the way the repair is made, the existing information on the disk drive will not be affected!

I decided to verify the claims that I knew were not possible. For testing is used hdd with 84 working days in good shape but not used for about 1,5 year because of a PCB problem. After successful fixing the problem and starting it I found that there are three UNC sectors.







Then I decided to do "Corrupted data recovery (making unreadable data readable)”.






There are interesting, albeit expected, results of "salvaging" the data:





None of the three "rescued" sectors unrelated to the previous or next in the series and it is clear that what is "rescued" is not really what is lost and what is lost is "trully" lost. It is unclear then why the author states what he states and charge for it $99.99.

However, I am particularly interested from where the hdd picked up a sector content to fill "recovered/restored" sector 2.889.497 ?

As you can see, it is the first sector of the hdds own module 6F which is normally located in SA. (Hdd was never used for hdd FW storage so no FW files in UA)

- Is it a malfunction in hdds FW?
- Is it because of instead of reading sector from spare sector space hdd is reading it from SA space?
- Or the spare sector space is filled with some earlier unimportant FW or copy od existing one?
- Or...?

And of course, to all avarage users: HDD Regenerator can not recover/restore data

But, "bad" DR guys can! If it is possible!

No one can answer my question?

Based on my experience, there is NO SUCH SW which handles Bad Sectors
and there is NO WAY 100$ tool (as you mentioned here)

it is combination SW/HW tool(s) such as Atola, DDI which can handle it

@the end you don`t need the full hdd clone (unless its required badly AS IS IMAGE)

Pro. users use those Pro. tools for specific purpose, such as: Bads on DB files (for example) or some other requirements

don`t waste ur time on such cheap tools, since you will end-up killing your/client drive more..

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Kuwait Data Recovery - UNIX GTC
The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once. By: Albert Einstein

Hdd regenerator doesn't really work for repairing sectors, it just overwrite them with some kind of crap information.
It's not much different then a "zero fill", you might also use free SW to zero fill sectors to repair them, the difference between this free tools and hdd regenerator is that hdd regenerator is able to "format" automatically just bad sectors.
As i know there are only 2 free tools that are able to zero fill only bad sectors automatically (without touching good sectors if you setup them properly), those are MHDD and HDAT2.

Hdd regenerator could help you to repair sectors, but will destroy data continent in it!
To recover data continent in bad sectors you need pro tools as Deepspar, DE, Atola, etc but not always is possible...

If you need to recover data you shouldn't use hdd regenerator, there are better (and free) tools that are able to clone data inside bad sectors as DMDE dos (by many reading attempt but it might kill heads due to a lot of stress).
Of course pro tools can handle bad sectors recovery in many other different ways as (sector jumping, loss readiness timing, reading retries, ignoring ECC or CRC, recalibration, etc), but as i wrote before even with those pro tools is not possible to recover all bad sectors (depends on how much is damaged the sector).

If you not need data and you want just try to repair the drive then you might try hdd regenerator but only if there are very few bad sectors, otherwise you will just stress heads and kill them, also bad sectors can appear again very easily so it would be just a waste of time.
When i see bad sectors on drive in which i don't need to recover data, i throw it away and buy a new one.

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My firmware database:
https://mega.nz/folder/O01DkBRI#MxP2J6ZNqXDcrX40I8MoQQ

@einstein9 @michael chiklis

You misunderstood me!

I know all about unreadable sectors and how to read them and this topic is not about that. Also, I'm not repairing drive and not recovering/restoring data, just draw attention to ordinary users about false statement for "recovering and restoring" with HDD Regenerator and waisting $99.99 on it. And I give practical evidence for that!

My question is specified on sector 2.889.497 "repaired" with this false statement tool: where from is the 512 bytes (sector) content saved to this sector after (false) repairing.



Exactly! But, this is NOT a crap data!!! It is the first sector from its own 6F modul from SA (see the pic)! How the heck it can be read with HDD Regenerator and saved in UA in this case?!?

It seems to me the topic is too large and its essence is lost or DR guys do not have the time to thoroughly read it.

If hdd degenerator really reads portions of firmware mod as you are saying for writing over bad sectors, very likely it loads those from ram.
You should know that when you power on the drive, SA firmware is loaded into the pcb ram, so i think that hdd degenerator reads pieces of code from ram and writes it on bad sectors.

Mod 6F is part of Wester Digital firmware, on seagate drives hdd degenerator overwrites different type of information, anyhow i never checked how hdd degenerator handles bad sectors overwriting (and really i don't care)!!

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My firmware database:
https://mega.nz/folder/O01DkBRI#MxP2J6ZNqXDcrX40I8MoQQ

How did you figure the first sector from 6F is what is intended to write to the respective bad sector by HDD Regen? And was this process replicated in more than one drive and results are consistently supporting this is true?

Question above is not to doubt your statement, but to understand better, as I have not thought/tried looking into this simply because of lack of interest.

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Hard Disk Drive, SSD, USB Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

This have nothing with other drives (cases) because I have already written behavior with other sectors. HDD Regenerator allways writes crap content (not original because unable to read it) in any "repairing" case.


I thought about it too. Moreover, it can be only from hdd ram or pc ram because it seems like the only logical (and technical) explanation. One is correct - there is falsehood about HDD Regenerator "Program features" on author site.


I did a test out of curiosity because I knew that HDD Regenerator (like many other "pro" tools) can read only errorfree sectors. But I was wondering what data is saved for what it claims to be "regenerated". Now I know it's a crap data and without warning to user! I am also disappointed to "experts" who claim to have restored the data using this tool but they just restore without restoring! And take money for that!

I think this statement can easily be misinterpreted. Why?
Because typically a drive that has bad sectors more often than not does not allow allow access by common widely known ways. As result, people can't get access to their files. Using advanced tools and knowledge allows "experts" to obtain a data copy from the drive, followed by extraction of the files. It is this process that the called "experts" charge for in the general sense.

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Hard Disk Drive, SSD, USB Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

Your findings are very interesting. I did understand your original post, but I didn't respond because I had no answer ... and I still don't.

I notice that the author of HDD Regenerator claims that "this technology is hardware independent". This would suggest that the software is not using WD's Vendor Specific Commands. However, I'm not aware of any ATA command that retrieves data from a drive's cache RAM, so I can only imagine that the bogus "repaired" data are being retrieved from a good sector within the user area. But you state that "Hdd was never used for hdd FW storage so no FW files in User Area" :?

Moreover, HDD Regenerator's claims are contradictory and ambiguous.


The word "repair" suggests that the original data are recovered, but low-level formatting is data destructive.

Prior to your findings, I had assumed that HDD Regenerator works by reading the existing data and writing it back to the drive. This process supposedly "refreshes" the "magnetisation" in weak sectors, or causes the drive to reallocate their LBAs to spare sectors.

Instead your test results suggest that the software is corrupting user data. Have you contacted the author with your findings?

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

I thought too that HDD Regenerator was able to repair sectors by "magnetisation" until 2 years ago
Of course doesn't exist such a software, the author is just a liar!
But it's true that the software is able to reallocate sectors in spare (only the windows version and only after having destroyed data inside the bad sector), DOS version is not able to reallocate LBA.


Exactly.

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My firmware database:
https://mega.nz/folder/O01DkBRI#MxP2J6ZNqXDcrX40I8MoQQ

HDD Regenerator's premise is that magnetic domains decay over time. The idea, AIUI, is to read the LBA before it decays too far, and then write the same data back to the same LBA. This "refreshes" the magnetic domains.


I'm not sure that I understand you correctly.

The drive reallocates LBAs, not the software. HDD Regenerator can only trigger a reallocation by writing new data to a bad LBA.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

yes, i mean "trigger"

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My firmware database:
https://mega.nz/folder/O01DkBRI#MxP2J6ZNqXDcrX40I8MoQQ

This is a crucial point on which I focused in this testing!

That's why I chose the hdd where the data is recorded long time ago, non powered for 1.5 years so I assumed that there are sectors who are bad magnetically but good physically.

After this tests, I conclude that the HDD Regenerator is just trying to read unreadable sector several (or several dozen or hundreds) of time and at the end:

- writes back successfully read sector
- reallocate physically unusable sector (hdds own function)
- writes crap data when unable to successfully read physically good sector

In the third case there is NO WARNING that data is FOREVER lost!
Instead, the software prints a clearly visible large green letters message REGENERATED.


So, the $99.99 HDD Regenerator is doing what Franc says:



while the author on his selling site claims:

- No data losses in any mode
- Corrupted data recovery (making unreadable data readable)
- Working with any operating system without losses of any data
- The HDD Regenerator can repair damaged hard disks without affecting or changing existing data. As a result, previously unreadable and inaccessible information is restored.
- Almost 60% of all hard drives damaged with bad sectors have an incorrectly magnetized disk surface. We have developed an algorithm which is used to repair damaged disk surfaces. This technology is hardware independent, it supports many types of hard drives and repairs damage that even low-level disk formatting cannot repair. As a result, previously unreadable information will be restored. Because of the way the repair is made, the existing information on the disk drive will not be affected!

All of this still doesn't answer the mystery of how the contents of a firmware module ended up in a user sector. Could there be a bug in the drive's own error handling? Are you sure that the same sector doesn't exist elsewhere on your drive? Did you actually scan your drive for this sector? Are you certain that the 6F data are from the drive's own SA (where else could they come from)?

Edit: Just to be certain, you began by referring to a WD5000AAKS model, but your WinHex screenshots show a WD3201ABYS drive.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

@fzabkar

I scanned the entire available UA surface and no such a data. The "recovered" sector and drives FW 6F moduls first sector have same 512 bytes data. They match.

The test is performed on WD3201ABYS. WD5000AAKS mentioned in the first sentence of post has nothing to do with the drive that has been tested.

And yes, the question how the contents of a firmware module ended up in a user sector is still open.

I'm thinking of buying SpinRite simply to run a similar test. Has anyone already done so?

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Luke
Recovery Force Data Recovery

I forget, but Spinrite may be on the Hiren's boot CD. May not need to buy it for attempting this.

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Hard Disk Drive, SSD, USB Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

It is only $89. But, at $89, why wouldn't a person just buy a new drive and copy their data over?

I love this quote from page 7 of the user manual.

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Luke
Recovery Force Data Recovery

I'd test but the drive is no longer with me.

How to back up the data before restoring it?
How to back up the unrestoring data?
If the data is readable for back up there is no need to restore!

Is there more such brilliant examples ?