Hi, I have a 2TB Seagate Barracuda XT 7200RPM drive that began failing a number of years ago but I never addressed it at the time. It began to stop reading periodically and then altogether, was the main OS drive with windows 7 x64 on it.

I began trying to see what I can do with it myself as data recovery is very expensive and I'm not sure it's worth the expense to me. If I could get the data off of it I would be happy, but I don't think I will miss it if I don't.

I plugged it into my windows 10 64 bit system and it spins up, no odd noises and once it reaches speed you can hear the head stack un-park itself. Sometimes it will be detected by the computer showing drives "H" and "I" but cannot access the drives. Usually when it shows up, windows says it either needs to be formatted or disk management says it needs to be initialized. I figured I would try replacing the PCB, so sourced one with the same model, desoldered the bios chip from the original board and soldered onto the new board. Drive seems to behave the same way. Sometimes windows sees it, sometimes it doesn't. I have the HiRens HDD software suite but haven't tried to use it it yet. I've tried Acronis True Image and some other software but whenever the drive was showing, the software would say that it couldn't read any sectors at all. That's as far as I've gotten. Any suggestions? No click of death and the drive sounds healthy. This was an internal HDD in my full ATX PC. Not sure if I should attempt a head stack replacement with the head tools that are available or not. I have tried mounting it in a Virtual Ubuntu system and also on a Mac. Didn't have and more or less luck with any platform.

Any help or guidance is appreciated.

Thanks!

The PCB wasn't the issues, so replacement and chip transfer were not necessary.

Head swap is probably not needed either, definitely not at least before confirming that a head is bad.
Typically that model drive with that behavior would have bad sectors and firmware issues.

Without advanced data recovery tools that not feasible for purchase, there is nothing much to do, sorry.

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

I think this model may have an accessible terminal port. If so, then there are commands which can stabilise the drive and help with cloning. Don't be tempted to try the "7200.11 fix", as this will probably result in partial accessibility problems.

If you want to proceed, you will need to purchase a USB-TTL adaptor. Let us know when you are ready.

Can you tell us the actual model number, ie ST... ?

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Hey thanks for the reply. I realized after I posted I hadn't included the model number which is st32000641as. I believe it has a terminal that looks like it could be connected to something. I figured trying to replace the pcb was an easy enough task with the tools I have available. Is there a specific usb-ttl interface that's recommended by this group for this drive? I am open to any suggestions. The pcb I used image is attached. Would just need to know which pins would need to go to which terminal. The board model is 100579470 Rev B. Thanks!

That's a 7200.12 series drive. Its terminal should be unlocked. Any adaptor with 3.3V TTL should be OK.

See this thread:

https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=38411

This is a ZOC script that automates the terminal commands:

http://www.hddoracle.com/download/file.php?id=3883

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Just ordered this: https://a.co/d/4iXkrfq

That work?

Yes, it should be OK.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Hi, I got the usb ttl device today and am ready to proceed if you can give instructions please

Found this youtube video and tried it after succesfully connecting to drive via hyperterminal here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oI3hDgfssu0

Followed instructions but did not receive the same result at the end. log of the sessions is attached. I have stopped here and do not know how else to proceed.

I await your insight

I warned you. You should not have executed the following command:



If your drive's non-resident G-list was empty, you will now have a partial access problem.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

What should I do?

Try my ZOC script.

I think this is the software:

https://emtec.com/download.html#zocfiles

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Thank you will do. I am away for a week but I will try when I return. I appreciate your willingness to help and teach. Are there any other instructions I might need before attempting?

You should be good to go.

If you succeed in stabilising the drive, then use HDDSuperClone to clone it.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Hi, So I tried to connect with ZOC by using the configuration I found on this forum with the attached file except using COM3 instead of the \\.\COM1 listed obviously because I'm connected on COM3. When I go to connect, I get the message that I've attached as a screenshot and selected No. It then proceeds to connect. I then selected Script and selected the first ST_congen script you directed me to use earlier, and when it runs the script it populates a message with Y/N and N is already entered for each step. I kept entering through N until it finished but I am assuming it didn't do anything to the drive. Please advise what I should be doing as in should I be changing it to Y for each step? I do not want to do something wrong again and while I won't be upset if I can't recover the drive, I would like to accomplish its' recovery myself. I am obviously not a HDD recovery expert and am relying on your guidance. Please pretend I know absolutely nothing when you are guiding me. I know enough to be dangerous which is what I'm afraid of. I await your reply.

Thanks!

Also, HDDSuperClone appears to be Linux based... are there any Windows based HDD cloning software you'd recommend using?

Answer Yes to each prompt except for the Media Cache parameter. I could be wrong, but I don't think Media Cache applies to this model.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Ok I will. Should I run both scripts? Or run 1st one and then try the drive and see if it reads, then try second script?

So I ran both scripts answering yes to each. It does not appear that the drive's state is any different. I grabbed a copy of the HDDSuperClone embedded in a virtual xubuntu and tried to clone it but it said there was a read error. Is there anything I can do to undo or fix what happened when I executed that command you said I shouldn't have previously?

If every read attempt beyond a particular LBA results in a read error, then your drive is affected by the aforementioned problem. There is a solution based on the "Leonardo method", but it's extremely tedious.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.