Hello I have a question about one data recovery which I`m doing today.

I`m newbie with PC3000 UDMA, our company has it from long time and now I`m assigned to work with it.

I was taking data out from WD20EACS-11BHUB0 and it was doing it right after successful SA Structure Test. The Drive ID was recognized and it was working fine, slow but fine. Because drive reaction time was very slow, and on every 4 green sectors I was getting 1 black. I decide to play with the Reading settings. I put big delays in reading sections, and skipped resetting the drive because it was very slow.

After a while properly scanning drive decide suddenly to get me Black Sectors in big columns. First I tought there are unreadable sectors but after several columns I've got suspicious.

I decide to stop the process and try to do reinitialize the drive and do the SA Structure Test again.

Turned OFF the drive, Turned ON, Waited until BSY goes OFF and then BAM, drive came with no ID and start knocking.

When I turn ON the power it starts Knocking for several seconds, then stops for several more. Then Knocking again.

PC3K is not recognizing the HDD ID anymore. In autodetect it finds the Family Sadle G6, Sectors, Cyl, Arc, Heads number, but not HDD ID so I cannot starts SA Structure Test.

I have Profile previously created. Also I still can open the Task in PC3K Explorer saved from previous scan.

(sorry for my lame explanations but I`m still newbie and don't know most of the terms)


In the PC3000 manual it say something about this case, that it can be caused by Disabling the heads without setting the LBA to proper size, but I didn't change the LBA size.

And they Offer to short circuit several test points/F23,F19/ on the PCB board, but cannot find them for my drive: WD20EACS-11BHUB0

If someone have explanation or ideas why suddenly it decide to react like this it will be grateful.

Regards

Sounds like a head/heads were weak, and now at least one has died.

Needs physical intervention.

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Thanks for quick response.

Is it normal to do not recognize hdd model and capacity anymore when this head gone weak or stop responding?

I assume head disable option will be unusable when SA mode is not accessible.

Regards

Alright guys some more Info:

I've got into Kernel mode and trying the procedure mentioned in PC3000 manual for WD drives. I managed to track the faulty heads down to Head0 and Head1.

When I disable them under Test>Service Information>Work With Rom>Rom Heads Map Editing. Drive is not knocking when I power it up.

But still Drive ID is EMPTY.

pcimage mentioned that it need physical intervention, but is it means that it needs Head Swap?

Looks like Head0 and Head1 are faulty, still I need Head swap or I can disable them and PC3000 will do the magic? Some of the Big Gurus here was mentioned that Proper Diagnostic is the key for successful data recovery.


Sorry if the questions are lame, but everyone needs to start from somewhere.



Thank you.

In order for the drive to ID, it needs one of the two first heads to be functional. Also disabling in rom will not help you access LBA.

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This, there are 2 copies of SA, one on Head 0, and one on Head 1, if neither of those heads are working then head replacement is required.


On these family HDD if even ONE head (like top head) has issues drive may not ID into normal mode, or it may ID into normal mode but give error 48bit, etc.

RAM map edit can be used to turn all heads off temporarily except for SA heads (0, 1) or even just 0 or 1, and this way you can get SA access and test heads in most cases.

Keep in mind though, in your case, it sounds like HSA replacement will be required to continue.

Thank you for the reply Russwinters


I've got the donor drive today. But there is more than 6months difference in production date. They offered this donor drive as compatible for head swap.

When we opened the patient drive there was massive scratches in inner and outer diameters on top platter.

Patient heads looks nice without any physical damage.

Looks like this is lost case. What you think?

If you can know for sure that only top platter is dead, you can always try to replace heads and clone all you can from others, and see what you get, but of course this is a high risk procedure, and chances of good quality data are pretty low, you may have luck with smaller files, and these drives have a little more mapped per head between each "head switch", you can possibly recover documents, pdfs, maybe even some lower resolution pictures (under 14 megapixel?)


either way, it is high risk and chances of recovery are VERY low if even only one platter is damaged.

We replaces the heads but still coming out with knocking sound and no sa access. Everything is coming black from the explorer.

Drive is almost always busy. Head swap should be perfect. We did it very carefully.


Bad things are that most of the data is ~1gb HD movies. So looks like dead end.


Thanks for hints.

Yes, given the issues with the drive and the likely sizes of the required files, then this case is a dead end

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