1 TB Seagate HDD issue with Windows 7

[SG2010F]

I have a 1 TB Seagate drive (Barracuda 7200) in my Lenovo desktop which has three partitions and I got an error “hal.dll” missing or corrupt” after rebooting and I found that the system was not recognizing this drive. I did not see this drive either from BIOS or from Devise Manager, I put it in WD external drive enclosure and connected to two other systems running windows 7 using USB and got an error "you must initialize a disk before logical disk manager can access it" when checked from "Disk management".
I can't initialize the disk as I have lot of personal files/pictures on this disk that I cannot effort to lose. I also tried with Ubuntu and this disk has not been identified. I can see the disk was spinning and a green light was blinking when connected. I installed the drive directly to my desktop once again but the disk was not being identified by BIOS or any other recovery software that was used. I even tried "Seagate Sea tools for Windows" and it did not identify this disk. Seagate DiskWizard could not be installed as it did not identify the Saegate drive. I checked with Active file recovery, R-Studio, EaseUS data recovery,Yodot Hard Drive Recovery, MiniTool Power Data Recovery 7.0, Pandora Recovery and Data Rescue PC3. All of these are evaluation/demo versions and I thought of buying the software when the disk is identified. So far no luck and I tried different SATA cables also. Disk seems to be powered and I can feel the heat and vibrations.

Any help please as I can''t afford the professional services fees and the I have my life pictures stored in this drive.

[jermy]

is there any unusual noise, clicking, beeping
it stops spinning ?
what model is it ?

[SG2010F]

is there any unusual noise, clicking, beeping
it stops spinning ?
what model is it ?

It is Seagate Barracuda 7200. 12 (1 TB)-Firmware - CC67. Its not making any unusual noise and seems to be spinning. I can hear the vibration when connected. However, the disk was a bit hot and i did not hear any clicking sound when connected directly to the motherboard. I did hear some clicks now and then when connected using a WD external drive enclosure.

Thanks for looking at this.

[jermy]

upload the terminal log please

http://hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=83&t=1073

you can buy a cheap TTL adaptor :

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=192

Conect it like this :

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=193

And look for the drive output.

DO NOT ISSUE THE 7200.11 FIX COMMANDS OR ANY COMMAND AT ALL

[SG2010F]

Ok, thanks again for all your help. Ordering it right away and will get the output as soon as I get a chance.

Happy thanksgiving.

[SG2010F]

Hi, first open disk management and Look under Disk drives and check for your external device with a yellow exclamation mark next to it. If you find a yellow exclamation mark next to external drive it means driver have problem. To know the problem just right-click on the device with a yellow exclamation mark, select Properties, and view the error message. This error message will help you to fix the problem.

Of course this will not help.

The drive is not even detected by BIOS even when pluged directly to the motherboard....

Yes, Splidit is right. This is not an issue with the drivers. I used a 'WD MyBook' external enclosure for this drive and connected to my laptop using USB. I still see the message " the device is working properly" as device status from device manager for this disk but disk is not been identified by any of the recovery software.

[SG2010F]

Any help please as I can''t afford the professional services fees and the I have my life pictures stored in this drive.

Well ... I'm verry sorry but i don't think you can have both....

Most likely the drive have some sort of translator problem that might involve damaged defect lists or even media damage/ failing heads.

With luck the damage it's only localized to the translator sub-system, and if so it might be a very cheap fix when done correctly. And this is the tricky part.

DO NOT APPLY THE 7200.11 FIX on this drive, as if there are defects on the non-resident G-List that list will be gone and it will be harder (and more expensive) to get your data back.

I would say as the data is important to you to just bit the bullet and pay for professional data recovery. Please chose a reputable data recovery firm and not an ordinary computer repair shop that most likely will blindly apply the 7200.11 fix to your drive.

If you decide that the data is not important at all and you want to attempt a do-it-yourself try with a chance to cause further damage to the drive (very likely) you can do as suggested, order a TTL adaptor and start by checking if you have defects on the Non-Resident G-list by issuing the CTRL+Z and at level F3 T> the command V40.

If the non-resident G-List is empty and only then i would as well check the G-List - V80 and then i would attempt a translator regen taking intro account the AltList - m0,6,3,,,,,22 and see if you can gain access to all LBA of the drive.

If so i would then disable rellocation :

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=83&t=557

And attempt to recover the data by cloning the drive and running logic recovery software on the clone if needed :

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=117&t=1410

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php? ... 1409#p7237

To better understand why you should NEVER attempt to regen the translator without taking intro account the defects on the non-resident G-List read my article here :

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=1402

Idea is that because of shift points in the translator sub-system you will end up with partial access only from the fist sectors on non.resident g-list that is ignored up untill the end of the drive. It will be like adding/removing a P-List defect as the non-resident g-list is a last step at factory to add extra "primary" defects to defect list that acts as a p-list and NOT as a g-list.

Regards and good luck.

Regards.

Hi Splidit,

I got the TTL adapter and I have a couple of questions here. Please help.

1. How safe it is to use this TTL adapter. Is this going to corrupt my drive further making things more complicated. if it is so risky then probably I will try to save some money for next two, three years and get the professional services.
2. How can I get the logs. What was the terminal that I nee do install.

please help.

best regards,