Need some advice. I understand some basics of hard drive technology, but nowhere near knowledgable about data recovery. I have important data (years of my professional photo archives) on a 1TB WD internal SATA drive that I feel will fail quite soon. What is the best 'newbie' way to just attempt to get my important files off? I'd like to find a DR tool that will not stumble on finding bad sectors, but will attempt to retry/skip/bypass them when running a DR job on the drive.

Background Info (please read):

My drive is WD's WD1001FALS model. It has worked without issues for about a year, but suddenly its read speeds collapsed to 2-3 MB/s - for certain files even <1 MB/s. Windows 7 drive options "check for errors" doesn't work.

WD's own diagnostic utility (DLGDIAG) reports SMART functions as passing its test, seems like good news. I ran the DLGDIAG extended test on the drive and it's taking forever - already running for 12 hours and I'm guessing it will be done in another 3 hours. I expect it will report back lots of bad sectors based on file read times I mentioned above and the time needed to run the test (runs under an hour on healthy drives).

If I understand this correctly your files are still readable. Do copy them to another hard drive asap. Then no need for data recovery tools or services.

Or are you experiencing read errors while trying to read from Win7?

Yes, I'm getting read errors. Win7 gets stuck when I attempt copying many of the files from this drive ... the progress bar on the copy job never finishes. Photoshop also struggles to open many of them.

I guess what I'm looking for is an app that will not only copy healthy files, but also try copying the bad ones - and won't get stuck or come up with prompts if it can't copy one (or more) corrupted files. Ideally, it would just copy as much as possible and then log errors or output a report at the end.

Unstoppable copy . But i do not advise doing this if there are many read errors.
http://www.roadkil.net/program.php?ProgramID=29

Force copying may lead to permanent damage.

The risk is yours.

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Thanks for the app link! What alternatives do I have? Trying to repair/reassign bad sectors somehow?

Most programs for recovery of files don't handle bad sectors well, and will probably also get stuck. The safest procedure is to use a cloning program to copy the contents of your failing disk to a healthy one. And then pull files by using a file recovery program targeting the cloned copy.

You will find information about programs for cloning disks by searching these forums. Ddrescue, Media Tools, Copyr and Diskpatch are tools often mentioned.

Sadly, bad sectors can make even these (software based) cloning tools to run into problems. And even more important: You have to realize that the involved extensive read attempts potentially can kill your disk if it got severe media damage.

If the data on the failing disk is important, you should very much consider asking an established Data Recovery business for a price quote.

Are basics being done?: Smart says drive its good. I hope you are not booting off this drive and then copying- just an outside chance the issue isnt the hard drive... From a known stable computer drive should be installed as second drive- non-boot. Then find and copy files. Just thought I would check in case basics were missed.

Best way to go would be to use a good imager like DDI to bit copy the drive onto a good one. But the tool is expensive and not in general use. You can use a program like R-Studio to scan the partition ur files are at, then modify read retries to say 1 ( so it skips the bad sectors , rather then hover there ) and copy the files to another drive. Expect errors along the line of CRC at sector "random number" blah blah. But it wont stop the copy process. Also u can try using a software cloner like HDclone for example to bit copy the entire drive onto another one.

thanks for all the advice. i'll try the programs mentioned.

Belive it or not, take the External Case off get to the Drive, i had the same problem, remove the PCB off the drive & inspect for brown "rust spots" if any try to clean the spots with alcohol. reassemble then place a jumper & drop the read speed to 1.5 Gbp on the board to make the drive read slower . you might get lucky & pull the data off, with a drag & drop. if not , your best bet is to "Clone the Drive " with a DDI or other Hardware tool maybe dd_rescue off systemreccd might work . WD "Green Drives" are crap from my Experience.. I've recovered 1TB My Book, 500GB Green Drive & 2Tb (Six Month Old) all with same symptoms. running slow & Rust..... the 500GB took 1 month on a ddi to clone over.. but the results where perfect (my friend did not try to run all the software under the sun to recover)

the drive is not external and is a WD Black series, not Green ... so I don't know how much of this applies

Mine is a WD Black not Green series. Also internal not external. So not sure how much of this applies ...

Nope definitely not booting off it, installed as a second drive.

I also wonder if any of the programs mentioned in this thread can copy partial file records? (i.e. just the accessible/uncorrupted portions of a given file). It's my understanding that many filetypes can still be opened despite being incomplete or corrupted. I would love to try to salvage some of my PSD and JPEG images this way.

IF you want to do that normal copy program wont help you to the end. You will have to start getting into forensics. There is a good program (not free) winhex that can examine files- you can actaully see the actaull data thats on the drive, try to extract them via winhex.

For JPG Files- i found out that the program ACDsee 3 or lwoer works great with corrupt jpegs. It will read the data from the beginning and end of the file- if You convert a jpg to jpg again using acdsee it sometimes fixes the corruption(but obvious it will leave black marks in areas tha were corrupt before)

Good Luck

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I've started an R-Studio scan, but it's now been almost a week and it's only scanned around 85% (+ slowed down considerably towards the end so it might be another week to get to 100%). Lots and lots of CRC errors reported.

I wonder if I should just stop the scan and start over with DDrescue? So far, RStudio hasn't copied anything, just scanned the drive. Getting a little nervous since I feel each extra hour spent scanning adds to the risk of my drive failing completely.

Now, I understand DDrescue pulls as much data as it can off the drive quickly - and then goes back to work on the difficult sectors ... so maybe it's a better tool for me right now? Any pros feel like commenting?

Yeah, I would have started with ddrescue in this case.

Can you not find a DR company in your area that uses the DDI and ask them to make a clone of your HDD. I am sure that this one will not cost you a lot of money. Considering that you are having all this trouble with what you are doing right now. If the data is as important as you say I can not see why a DR company in your area can not clone this drive with a good cloning tool such as the DDI for around 100 dollars or so for you. This might be a better option on this one than forcing this drive to continue on like it is. You are only doing more damage to this drive. Just a though that might make things easier for you. Take a new drive and your bad one and ask them to clone it to the new drive for you. I am sure they would be more than willing to do this one. If not we can ask one of the members here on the forum if they are willing to help you out in this and clone your drive for you. Considering you do not need a DR recovery on it only to transfer data from one drive to another this one can not be that expensive to do this.

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Iorana Haraharaini

Not really an option in my area. The only reputable data recovery business here charges from $500-$2000 to clone a drive ($500 for low level extraction and $2000 if they need to use their cleanroom). The data is valuable to me, but I need to get the majority of it off the drive before thinking of investing that much money.

Would love some other input ... if I were to use ddrecovery, how should the drives be hooked up in BIOS for fastest operation? What command line switches are recommended for a good ddrecovery clone job?

WOW this is a shame. Here I some computer techs who need to only clone a drive to a new one and do not have the tools to do this one with. I do it for them and never charge them 500 dollars to do this for them. I can not see why a DR company would need to charge so much for a cloning of a HDD. But on the other hand I am on an island and here we do things a little different when it comes to helping out people here. I am sorry to hear this one.

You can try a Linux based progam or ddrescue on this one and try to clone the drive backwards. But the drive has to be on the mother board. There is also some DOS progam you can try on this one. But your best bet is to try and reason with a DR company who has the tools and offer them 100 dollars to clone your drive. You can even supply the new drive for them. Tell them this is all you want on it nothing else. There is a guy in Canada I think he goes by Craigxxx they are numbers. Try searching for him he owns the Atola and the DC and he might do this one for you if you ask of him on it.

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Iorana Haraharaini