I am trying to clone a failed 2TB Seagate LP drive to aid in data recovery using HDD Raw Copy. Everything works fine (and fast) for the first ~397,000 sectors - then it slows way down and starts giving "unrecoverable read error" messages. I have tried several times and it always stops at the same location. I let HDD copy run for a while beyond this point and it never starts copying again. It appears the drive stops communicating because attempts to access the drive after that point are unsuccessful. However, if I power down the drive then power back up it once again becomes accessible.

I have recovered numerous files from those first 397,000 sectors - so it appears the drive heads and electronics are working - but why does it stop after reading 397,000 sectors? If there were bad sectors wouldn't HDD copy resume when it got to good sectors? Instead, it's almost like the drive "times out" and disconnects. Could this be an AAM/APM problem?

Any ideas or suggestions for a "next step"?

SMART data from CrystalDiskInfo attached.

One more possible clue - when I try to run HDDscan after the drive stops reading as described above it gives an error message, "The semaphore timeout period has expired".

What does THAT mean and is it what's causing the drive to stop reading - or is it a symptom of a drive that has stopped communicating?

Your drive has a problem with bad sectors. I would use a tool such as ddrescue to clone it. Ddrescue keeps a log so that it can resume after a stoppage. It also understands how to work around bad media. You can also clone in reverse.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Thank you, I will give DDrescue a try.

In the mean time, I scanned the drive using HDDScan. Whenever I go beyond that 397,000 sector point (even if I select a scan range like 800,000 to 900,000) it shows all bad sectors - and the drive "locks up". As long as I scan in ranges below 397,000 sectors HDDScan continues working -and it shows the drive is good.

How is it possible the ENTIRE hard drive - except for the first 397,000 sectors - is bad? Or is HDDScan giving me erroneous readings in this case (since something is locking up the read process above 397,00 sectors)?

Try imaging the drive in reverse (you can do this in ddrescue using the -R trigger) or even just checking the highest LBA sectors in hex edit to see if they can read. If it can read to the end, then imaging with a tool like ddrescue will most likely work.

If you can't read to the end, you possibly might have a translator issue.

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Data Medics - Hard Drive, SSD, and RAID Data Recovery Service Company

I tried to read the drive using the hex editor in Partition Guru and once again hit that 397184 sector "wall". I can see data up to that point but it wont read and seems to "lock up" if I try to access any area beyond 397184.

So, perhaps it is a translator problem. If so, is it possible to fix via terminal commands (e.g., rebuild slip list and G-list) or is there much more to it than that?

All I am trying to do at this point is copy the drive to recover as much as possible.