Maxtor 541DX 2B020H1 imaging and head questions

[mediaman]

OK guys, first real question (gulp!)

I have the above mentioned disk from a client. They are after only certain information: *.PST's. Not the whole disk.
I repaired the standard problems associated with the disk not showing up/showing up as different size series and now "see" the disk in all my tools.

I DON'T have a good imaging solution yet (not my fault, long story) so have done separate images where the disk is readable:
0 - 14.700.000
16.300.000 - 20.000.000
23.000.000 - 35.000.000

Question 1: I will now combine these files and use my file recovery tools. Is copy /b (DOS command) adequate, or would you use more specific hex tools? Do I have to zero fill the gaps?

Question 2: as you can see a good part of the disk is readable, and the areas are 100% consistent (don't vary from one imaging attempt to the other) so I am thinking the media itself is damaged. I have a spare unit and clean room on hand, would a head swap help improve the amount of recovered LBA's?

Question 3: (probably the dumbest one) as I think (not opened yet) the platter is on top of the headstack, could I not just swap platter and board to my donor chassis? This will avoid moving the head itself. I guess the question should be are there any motor specific calibration datas held in ROM.

Thanks for your patience

[rchadwick]

How dare you ask a question here? Who are you? Don't you know only gods are allowed to tread here?

Well, I don't know about your imaging issues, so I'd recommend writing what you have to a new drive. Be sure to wipe the drive first, or the gaps might contain someone else's data. If you really want to work from an image file, why not make an image of the new drive?

As for heads, I think that, all things being equal, the original heads will always work better than replacement heads. The fact you've got a good chunk of the data reliably indicates the heads are good.

You might want to resolve your imaging issues. A good imager might help fill in a lot of your gaps. If you're trying to recover a big .PST file, you don't want large gaps.

[mediaman]

How dare you ask a question here? Who are you? Don't you know only gods are allowed to tread here?

Well, I don't know about your imaging issues, so I'd recommend writing what you have to a new drive. Be sure to wipe the drive first, or the gaps might contain someone else's data. If you really want to work from an image file, why not make an image of the new drive?

As for heads, I think that, all things being equal, the original heads will always work better than replacement heads. The fact you've got a good chunk of the data reliably indicates the heads are good.

You might want to resolve your imaging issues. A good imager might help fill in a lot of your gaps. If you're trying to recover a big .PST file, you don't want large gaps.

Gosh, that was not as painful as I had imagined. Thanks Rchadwick. Actually playing around, i think I can mount the individual "chunks" of image as virtual volumes and process them together. I am trying now.

You are right about the missing blocks on large files like PST's. If all my imaging efforts fail to recover them, I may try the headswap or maybe cleaning the media (if it looks crappy on opening).

I would love to own deepspar but it's not in my budget now. I wonder if they ever turn up "used"?

Thanks

[rchadwick]

Maybe you know something I don't, but I've never heard of any success related to 'cleaning' the media, with the possible exception of removing dust and fingerprints. You might want to re-think an imager, especially before doing something risky. Hint: Deepspar isn't the only imager available.

[BlackST]

I think head and media are OK. The problems are just in the FW, these drives are a pain in the ass for such issues. Before opening the drive, have a thorough overall check. And a solid backup of the SA !!!

[mediaman]

thanks guys. I have done a full FW backup with Atola. regarding imaging Atola "should" have deepspar level imaging but I can't wait so long. The actual imaging is slow (USB) and does not have much intelligence like mapping etc.

To be honest, I have heard that deepspar is as good as they get, and the feature set is impressive. I am making a real effort to get into professional DR and can't stand second rate tools. YEC Ninja with dr mode looks good and has been well recommended, but seems one step back from Deepspar. What others might I consider?

I plan to use the old Salvation HDD repair tool for the 541DX but first am trying to get as good an image as possible.

I probably am confused re-cleaning media, but the non-responsive areas are so repeatable and grouped together I can almost envisage streaks on the platter. Cleanable or not is another matter for my learning curve..

THANKS

[rchadwick]

To paraphrase an old gun adage.. The first rule of disk imaging is to have an imager. Deepspar might be nice, but the imager you have always works better than the one you don't. MTP is a popular choice.

[BlackST]

BTW ... you said you want to use the salvation tool... is it a POKER or DSP ?!?

[mediaman]

no no BlackSt, its the older freeware HDD Repair 2.0 from Salvation (not on their page anymore) that was made specialy for the 541DX. I am unsure if it will help in my case (think not by now) but will try it after I have made as good an image as possible. Atola also "appears" to fix these drives standard errors, It was that that got the disk mounted.

My image is looking better now and I may be lucky before getting to that stage.

BTW virtual volumes (that I mentioned above) don't work unless all the sector headers are sequential and present. IE. I would have to generate dummy image files (stuffed 0's) for each unreadable sector or groups of sectors.... Back to a single pass image now with some retrys per failed IO.

[Nationwide DR]

What did you use to image? You should be imaging direct to a wiped HDD. Use MHDD. take note of where most of the bad blocks are located.

Use Media Tools. Manually map out the bad areas. Image so far, when you encounter bad area, skip 1 million sectors, and continue imaging. Complete process until complete. Once complete, reverse clone in between the bad areas. For Example - 0 - 4000 000 no errors, error encountered at 4100000. Skip to 5100000. If clone completes, reverse clone from 5100000 > 4100000. You will soon get a pretty complete image.

Another option is to use Winhex, clone to another disk, skip errors at 900. Fill in gaps with media tools.

Another Option - Data Extracter/Deepspar/Data Compass/YEC products.

This making any sense?

[mediaman]

hey nationwide, thanks for your help.
I have done two sets of images: with atola, i have imaged the readable sections as mentioned in my first post.
the second image was done with rstudio with 2 retries per failed IO.
Neither of the two will reverse clone now
Both sets of images were done to a file rather than a disk. Speed is not an issue for me at the moment.
What would be the advantaged of imaging to a disk rather than a file?

Deespar is on my shopping list, maybe next month.
Thanks again guys.