Dear All

I got a Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 200GB harddisk drive with PN : 9W2844-301 and Firmware 3.01. Lately, the drive is not detecting any partition anymore however the good thing is the BIOS is reading it. I tried to run testdisk / MHDD on the drive and able to view the partition table list but I think there is quite a big amount of bad sectors in the very beginning sectors and also some in the middle of the drive.

I tried to use different software imaging tool to create an image however the drive disconnect whenever it read the bad sector area.

I ran also the HDDScan and according to the SMART report :-

Reallocation Sector Count is 099 , 099
Current Pending Sector Count is 100 , 100
Uncorrectable Sector Count is 100 , 100

And I am wondering what I can do next with available freeware ? And what do you think it's actually happening with the drive please ?

Thanks in advance !

Try dd_rescue

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hi guys again. after several months leaving the "dead drive" in my drawer and finally i connect it with the cable and ran dd_rescue , ddrescue , safecopy , spinrite , seatool... etc

the outcome is the drive clone the first 9.8MB and then hang for a while ( both HDD and busy light stay on ) and then you can hear the motor is not spining anymore.

tried also to use the -r command of ddrescue and it seems running but in a rate like 1xxkb/s, i leave it load for over a week and finally it hanged again.

may I ask what is the next step please ? data is important but i don't mind to give a try to fix it by my own for even purchasing some tool or donor.

can someone please give me a simple guide for what to do next ?

thanks in advance !

Spinrite is a drive killer. If you can not clone this drive using what you are doing now it is time to ask someone who has the tools to do it with. Professional tools will clone this drive now if you stop trying to run all these programs on it. Most software package can not handle this one you need to have a professional tool designed to do this job.

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Iorana Haraharaini

hi mate can you or anybody please advise what "pro tool" that is available currently ?

pc3000 / hd doctor do rescue my data in this case please ?

PC3000 and HD DOCTOR won't rescue any data. They are intended for working with drive internals AND you need to know how drive works. If you want a "click and go" rescue , it's sci-fi. Why don't you ask for a pro service that won't cost the world ? You said :

may I ask what is the next step please ? data is important but i don't mind to give a try to fix it by my own for even purchasing some tool or donor.

Buying tools will cost you a lot more (UDMA is several thousand $) and you should have knowledge as pre-requisite. Nobody will help you to do what you want. So be real.

BlackST are you into the data recovery business ?

What do you think ?

Yes I think so.

In fact I went to some trainings before like encase and atola and i do hv some standard knowledge abt hdd however i don't hv much actual experiences abt different cases. this is the reason i ask from here and it's sad for me to stop at this stage to get a pro to repair the drive as i still think something i can do, but obviously i need some guide from u guys.

Anyway happy birthday to you.

AAAAHHHH... now I get

What tools do you have at hand (Atola? SD? ACE? etc.) so maybe a more precise help can be given.

P.S. it's more a logical case than effectively physical - a weak head, maybe, but it may be only a matter of strategy to get data back.

none of the tool i purchsed as i went for the course for personal interest only and in fact this is my first actual case.

in case if i go for head stack replacement, what needed to be match for a donor ?

i saw some drives selling from ebay with same firmware but different site code, do u think i try to use them ?

on the other hand i made a com cable to enable myself to logon to the tmos, but according to the ata command manual ( which can be searched somewhere in hddguru ) i found the command set is not completely for this model of hdd.

i believe no matter pc3000 , atola or sd are all playing with the terminal so i'd rather learn directly / try how to play with the terminal than pay 7000usd for atola ?

what's ur thought ?

Its not a good idea to experiment on your first case. What have you told your customer?

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Zero Alpha: zeroalpha.com.au
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If I see the drive I can tell you if it is something doable either via terminal , with some tool or simply using imaging strategy, just to avoid unnecessary steps.
Hint : figure out if heads are working correctly and you just have surface problem, before thinking about headstack swap.

mate it's in fact my own hard drive so no problem

Agree, anyway to obtain the correct ata command list somewhere from the net or it's something internal ?

the only one doc i found about seagate ata command is seems translated from russian, any tutorial discuss about these things in fact ?

i tried to run the servo calibration and it's not helping, was about to run head linearziation however due to leak information provided by the document and am not dare to try it.

seems changing the head stack is a quick solution if i have a donor... can i use the head stack from other drive with same firmware or any other requirment that need to be match before i open the cover ?

hope to hear you again soon, cheers !

Run servo cal was a bad idea, don't know , however, if it has done damage (by modifying radically the adaptives) , head linearization would have been more destructive.
The fact that some info exist, doesn't mean that it is safe to put information into action, more and more on drive with live data inside.

gotcha ! will try to use this as a test drive for testing. cheers and thanks for helping man !