Hi everyone.

I'm not working in the recovery business; i'm an everyday bloke with a faulty drive; i don't consider the data on it very valuable, at least not enough to spend what a recovery company would charge me for it.

Maybe you could give me a few tips on what to do/ not do to salvage my data myself.

The drive is from 2007 and was sitting in a shelf for the past 6 months; when i power it on, it's not recognised anymore in
Win 7. The hard disk management in Win 7 lists it as RAW and wants to
initialise it.
I have downloaded the SAMSUNG test drive utility and it passed all tests
successfully:
READ DMA
check SMART
SPIN DOWN/UP
SIMPLE SURFACE SCAN
WRITE VERIFY
RANDOM SURFACE SCAN
ram VERIFY TEST
mULTIPLE READ TEST
( i skipped the read surface scan test, because it would take a long time)

I have tried to boot with a Linux rescue CD like Knoppix, and it doesn't recognise at all the drive.

I have tried Easy Recovery Pro, and it passes the SMART tests, but sees no partition. When i start a RAW search, i get after about 5 minutes of search a warning saying " an error hapened in the analysis of the partition", and simultaneously, the drive starts making clicking noises, so i stop the analysis (the clicking stops simultaneously). Exactly the same goes for all the 3 other recovery programs i tried.

Should i try to image the entire disk, or should i try to swap the logical board with an identical drive that i (fortunately) own ?

Thanks for your help.

I work in a different part of the disk drive industry, not in DR, but I'll pass on a couple of comments, in the hope that they help. Use or ignore them as you wish

Based on this decision, that you'll take the risk of your DIY turning a potentially recoverable situation into an unrecoverable (or at least much more expensive) one, then...


That would be my plan in this situation, if I had decided to take the risk of DIY, and could accept the potential loss.


That's unlikely to help, based on the symptoms that you are reporting.


Cloning software does exist for Windows (some people recommend DMDE, for example), though I prefer to use Linux/Unix instead for cloning (e.g. ddrescue) despite the complications to use it effectively.


I am very surprised at this, since you say that Windows does recognises the drive (though not the filesystem, hence it is shown as "Raw"). I suspect that you might be mistaken, and (similar to Windows), the drive was recognised by Linux, although again, not the filesystem(s). It all depends where you were looking, to decide that Linux "doesn't recognise at all the drive", and also whether the drive had been left in an abnormal state, after using Windows.

If you're going to try cloning the drive yourself, then obviously the choice of OS & software is up to you, although the cloning softwatre that you choose needs to be designed for this type of situation (so not Acronis, Ghost etc.). You might want to practice using unimportant disks first, if you're not familiar with the software that you decide to use. Remember that if you make a mistake and reverse the source & target of the clone, for example, the overwritten data is totally unrecoverable (just one of the many risks of DIY...).

IF the bad blocks are on regular pattern throughout the entire surface the problem is beyond "everyday bloke" capabilities.
Want to RE-USE it loosing all the data on it ? 'ZERO' it then retry to init from system management. No joy ? Discard.

No other option seen.

Thank you Vulcan for your attention.
To answer your post:

- I would gladly pay the price of a new drive or two to a recovery expert to get what's on the drive ( family and pet pictures, medical stuff downloaded from the internet, about 300 Gb in all) ; this alone would spare me the days of research to fix it myself ( supposing i succeed , ha ha). But we both know that's not how things roll in this business.

- I'm very surprised too Linux doesn't see the drive; i went into "computer" and searched for the usual "storage drive" icon; there wasn't any, altough it recognised the spare salvage drive and the USB stick. I tried Knoppix with the same result.

- HDD Guru offers a feee HDD RAW copy tool, or i could use ddrescue (but i need to do a lot of reading so i can use it safely) . Which one would you advise me to use ?

Thanks for your time.

Thank you for answering me.
I'm not so sure bad blocks are the main reason; i have gone on a salvage data webpage listing problems with Samsung drives: they pinpointed exactly my problem
" Your SAMSUNG disk is seen in the BIOS and seem to function normaly, but Windows, Linux or Mac can't see any partition"

This would lead me to believe it's a diskware issue ( but hey, what do i know ?) rather than a physical one.

Your solution would be to initialise it in Windows then try to salvage what i can ?

No my "other" solution is destructive : TOTALLY ZEROFILL to see if it can be re-used. BUT IT IS DESTRUCTIVE FOR DATA (WILL WIPE EVERYTHING) so if you have something inside that you want to save DON'T DO IT.

Some DR companies offer free evaluations, so you can then make a decision based on a known price. I'm fairly sure there are some board members from DR companies in Canada...

Also, if the drive is still mostly readable, then professional cloning tools are likely to have a better chance of success than the free or low cost utilities available.


Ah, I think that's the problem. I'm fairly sure that each of those icons you're referring to (which you would then double-click to see the files), is the equivalent of a drive letter under "My Computer" on WinXP and represents a filesystem - not a physical drive. So when the filesystem(s) is/are unreadable, then you see no icons, even if the physical drive is recognised, and therefore is available for cloning attempts (with suitable software).

To double-check, either boot Linux and check the dmesg output for messages reporting a drive of the correct make/model; or check what raw device nodes are listed for /dev/sd_ (i.e. /dev/sda, /dev/sdb etc, depending on the number of drives which are attached to the system). If the physical "problem" drive has a raw device node listed (e.g. /dev/sda) then that is what is used for cloning attempts, in a situation like this.


Unfortunately I haven't tried the HDDGuru free Raw copy tool, so I can't give an opinion about it. As you say, assuming that the raw drive is indeed being recognised by Linux, ddrescue can need some time / skill / experience to get the best results from it.

I hope that helps in your decision-making.

The fact that the following diagnostic tests passed suggests to me that you indeed have a "physical" problem:

SIMPLE SURFACE SCAN
RANDOM SURFACE SCAN
MULTIPLE READ TEST

You go on to say that you "skipped the read surface scan test, because it would take a long time". I suspect that such a test would have identified the bad sectors. That said, a sector-by-sector clone would be advisable at this stage, rather than a potentially stressful surface scan.

You also say that your drive "passes the SMART tests". Did these tests report any reallocated or pending sectors? Could we see the SMART data?

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

You're right, Vulcan.
I forgot to mention that even though Knoppix or Ubuntu don'tshow the icon of the drive, TESTDISK and PHOTOREC do see it as raw.

I didn't try to pursue these avenues, not being well versed into Linux. I guess i can go to work now ...

I used EASY RECOVERY PRO for the advanced SMART test; does this software produce the info you're making mention of, or is there another software i should use ?

EDT: Would the PassMark DiskCheckup utility be OK ?
http://www.passmark.com/products/diskcheckup.htm

I don't use EASY RECOVERY PRO, but I would use either HD Sentinel or HDDScan.

HD Sentinel (DOS / Windows / Linux):
http://www.hdsentinel.com/

HDDScan for Windows:
http://hddscan.com/

See this article for SMART info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Ok,
Here is the HD Sentinel report:

-- Physical Disk Information - Disk: #0: SAMSUNG HD400LD --

Hard Disk Summary
-------------------
Hard Disk Number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 0
Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : IDE/ATA
Hard Disk Model ID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : SAMSUNG HD400LD
Firmware Revision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : WQ100-15
Hard Disk Serial Number . . . . . . . . . . . . : S0AXJ1LLA19982
Total Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 381551 MB
Power State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Active
Current Temperature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 18 °C
Maximum Temperature (Ever Measured) . . . . . . : 18 °C, 11/11/2011 23:08:13
Minimum Temperature (Ever Measured) . . . . . . : 18 °C, 11/11/2011 23:08:13
Maximum Temperature (During Entire Lifespan) . . : 39 °C
Power On Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 42 days, 6 hours
Estimated Remaining Lifetime . . . . . . . . . . : 753 days
Health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : #############------- 65 % (Fair)
Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : ##############------ 70 % (Good)

There are 12 bad sectors on the disk surface. The contents of these sectors were moved to the spare area.
Based on the number of remapping operations, the health of the disk was decreased in different steps.
There are 33 weak sectors found on the disk surface. They may be remapped any time in the later use of the disk.
At this point, warranty replacement of the disk is not yet possible, only if the health drops further.
The hard disk is operating in UDMA mode 2 (33 Mbytes/sec) which reduces performance. It is recommended to use a 80 conductor IDE cable if the controller supports higher data transfer rate(s).
It is recommended to examine the log of the disk regularly. All new problems found will be logged there.
It is recommended to continuously monitor the hard disk status.

ATA Information
-----------------
Hard Disk Cylinders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 775221
Hard Disk Heads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 16
Hard Disk Sectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 63
ATA Revision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : ATA/ATAPI-7 T13 1532D version 4a
Total Sectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 781422768
Bytes Per Sector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 554
Buffer Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 8192 KB
Multiple Sectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 16
Error Correction Bytes . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 4
Unformatted Capacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 412853 MB
Maximum PIO Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 4
Maximum Multiword DMA Mode . . . . . . . . . . . : 2
Maximum UDMA Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 100 MB/s (5)
Active UDMA Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 33 MB/s (2)
Minimum Multiword DMA Transfer Time . . . . . . : 120 ns
Recommended Multiword DMA Transfer Time . . . . : 120 ns
Minimum PIO Transfer Time Without IORDY . . . . : 240 ns
Minimum PIO Transfer Time With IORDY . . . . . . : 120 ns
ATA Control Byte . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Valid
ATA Checksum Value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Valid

Acoustic Management Configuration
-----------------------------------
Acoustic Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported
Acoustic Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Disabled
Current Acoustic Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Default (00h)
Recommended Acoustic Level . . . . . . . . . . . : Max performance and volume (FEh)

ATA Features
--------------
Read Ahead Buffer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported, Enabled
DMA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported
Ultra DMA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported
S.M.A.R.T. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported
Power Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported
Write Cache . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported
Host Protected Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported
Advanced Power Management . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported
Extended Power Management . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported
Power Up In Standby . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported
48-Bit LBA Addressing . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported
Device Configuration Overlay . . . . . . . . . . : Supported
IORDY Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported
Read/Write DMA Queue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported
NOP Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported
Trusted Computing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported
64-Bit World Wide ID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported
Streaming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported
Media Card Pass Through . . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported
General Purpose Logging . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported
Error Logging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported
CFA Feature Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported
CFast Device . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported
Long Physical Sectors (1) . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported
Long Logical Sectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported
Write-Read-Verify . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported
NV Cache Feature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported
NV Cache Power Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported
NV Cache Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported
Free-fall Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported
Free-fall Control Sensitivity . . . . . . . . . : Not supported

SSD Features
--------------
Data Set Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported
TRIM Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported
Deterministic Read After TRIM . . . . . . . . . : Not supported

S.M.A.R.T. Details
--------------------
Off-line Data Collection Status . . . . . . . . : Aborted By Interrupting Command From Host
Self Test Execution Status . . . . . . . . . . . : Successfully Completed
Total Time To Complete Off-line Data Collection : 7575 seconds
Execute Off-line Immediate . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported
Abort/restart Off-line By Host . . . . . . . . . : Not supported
Off-line Read Scanning . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported
Short Self-test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported
Extended Self-test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported
Conveyance Self-test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported
Selective Self-Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported
Save Data Before/After Power Saving Mode . . . . : Supported
Enable/Disable Attribute Autosave . . . . . . . : Supported
Error Logging Capability . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported
Short Self-test Estimated Time . . . . . . . . . : 2 minutes
Extended Self-test Estimated Time . . . . . . . : 129 minutes
Last Short Self-test Result . . . . . . . . . . : Never Started
Last Short Self-test Date . . . . . . . . . . . : Never Started
Last Extended Self-test Result . . . . . . . . . : Never Started
Last Extended Self-test Date . . . . . . . . . . : Never Started

Security Mode
---------------
Security Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported
Security Erase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported
Security Erase Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 114 minutes
Security Enhanced Erase Feature . . . . . . . . : Supported
Security Enhanced Erase Time . . . . . . . . . . : 114 minutes
Security Enabled . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : No
Security Locked . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : No
Security Frozen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Security Counter Expired . . . . . . . . . . . . : No
Security Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : High

Serial ATA Features
---------------------
S-ATA Compliance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : No
S-ATA I Signaling Speed (1.5 Gps) . . . . . . . : Not supported
S-ATA II Signaling Speed (3 Gps) . . . . . . . . : Not supported
S-ATA Gen3 Signaling Speed (6 Gps) . . . . . . . : Not supported
Receipt Of Power Management Requests From Host . : Not supported
PHY Event Counters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported
Non-Zero Buffer Offsets In DMA Setup FIS . . . . : Not supported
DMA Setup Auto-Activate Optimization . . . . . . : Not supported
Device Initiating Interface Power Management . . : Not supported
In-Order Data Delivery . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported
Asynchronous Notification . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported
Software Settings Preservation . . . . . . . . . : Not supported
Native Command Queuing (NCQ) . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported
Queue Length . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported

Disk Information
------------------
Disk Family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : SpinPoint T133
Form Factor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 3.5"
Capacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 400 GB (400 x 1.000.000.000 bytes)
Number Of Disks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 3
Number Of Heads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 6
Rotational Speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 7200 RPM
Rotation Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 8,33 ms
Average Rotational Latency . . . . . . . . . . . : 4,17 ms
Disk Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Ultra-ATA/100
Buffer-Host Max. Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 100 MB/seconds
Buffer Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 8192 KB
Drive Ready Time (Typical) . . . . . . . . . . . : 10 seconds
Average Seek Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 8,9 ms
Track To Track Seek Time . . . . . . . . . . . . : 0,8 ms
Full Stroke Seek Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 18,0 ms
Width . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 101,6 mm (4,0 inch)
Depth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 146,1 mm (5,8 inch)
Height . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 25,4 mm (1,0 inch)
Weight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 653 grams (1,4 pounds)
Acoustic (Idle) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 2,7 Bel
Acoustic (Min Performance And Volume) . . . . . : 2,8 Bel
Acoustic (Max Performance And Volume) . . . . . : 2,8 Bel
Required Power For Spinup . . . . . . . . . . . : 2.250 mA
Power Required (Seek) . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 9,5 W
Power Required (Idle) . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 7,7 W
Power Required (Standby) . . . . . . . . . . . . : 0,9 W
Manufacturer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Samsung
Manufacturer Website . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : http://www.samsung.com/Products/HardDiskDrive/index.htm

S.M.A.R.T.
------------
No. Attribute Thre.. Value Worst Data Status Flags
1 Raw Read Error Rate 51 253 100 000000000000 OK Error-Rate, Performance, Statistical, Critical
3 Spin Up Time 15 100 100 000000001E00 OK Performance, Statistical, Critical
4 Start/Stop Count 0 100 100 00000000010E OK (Always passing) Self Preserving, Event Count, Statistical
5 Reallocated Sectors Co.. 10 99 99 00000000000C OK Self Preserving, Event Count, Statistical, Critical
7 Seek Error Rate 51 253 253 000000000000 OK Error-Rate, Performance, Statistical, Critical
8 Seek Time Performance 15 253 253 000000000000 OK Self Preserving, Performance, Critical
9 Power On Time Count 0 100 100 0000000003F6 OK (Always passing) Self Preserving, Event Count, Statistical
10 Spin Retry Count 51 253 253 000000000000 OK Self Preserving, Event Count, Statistical, Critical
11 Drive Calibration Retr.. 0 253 253 000000000000 OK (Always passing) Event Count, Statistical
12 Drive Power Cycle Count 0 100 100 0000000000A7 OK (Always passing) Self Preserving, Event Count, Statistical
190 Airflow Temperature 0 82 61 000000000012 OK (Always passing) Self Preserving, Statistical
194 Disk Temperature 0 184 121 000000000012 OK (Always passing) Self Preserving, Statistical
195 Hardware ECC Recovered 0 253 100 000000000000 OK (Always passing) Event Count, Error-Rate, Statistical
196 Reallocation Event Count 0 99 99 00000000000C OK (Always passing) Self Preserving, Event Count, Statistical
197 Current Pending Sector.. 0 97 97 000000000021 OK (Always passing) Event Count, Statistical
198 Off-Line Uncorrectable.. 0 253 253 000000000000 OK (Always passing) Self Preserving, Event Count
199 Ultra ATA CRC Error Co.. 0 200 200 000000000000 OK (Always passing) Self Preserving, Event Count, Error-Rate, Performanc..
200 Write Error Rate 0 253 100 000000000000 OK (Always passing) Error-Rate, Statistical
201 Soft Read Error Rate 0 253 100 000000000000 OK (Always passing) Error-Rate, Statistical

The report is showing 12 (=0x0C) reallocated sectors, plus 33 (=0x21) sectors pending reallocation. HD Sentinel refers to these as "bad" and "weak", respectively.

Overall that's not too bad, but it could be that the affected sectors are located within a critical file system area. In any case ISTM that you should have a good chance to clone your drive with ddrescue. You might like to try cloning in reverse.

I would also examine the SMART report on a regular basis and note whether the errors increase.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

After doing some reading, i think DDRescue tries automatically to read in reverse once he has stumbled on a bad sector, so i don't have to enter anything to tell it to clone backwards...

Can anyone confirm ?...

John125b check your inbox. Just sent you a pm.


Loki

@John125b:

I don't want to duplicate whatever info loki has kindly PM'd to you, but your comments about ddrescue behaviour are incorrect.

The ddrescue algorithm described here, is not the most easy to understand English I have ever read, but the author is not a native English speaker - his English is much better than my Spanish!:

http://www.gnu.org/s/ddrescue/manual/dd ... #Algorithm

The confusion you have may be between the directon of reading the large blocks (usually forwards), and the reading of sectors withing those blocks (which can be backwards, in different stages). Bear that in mind when reading the algorithm description, and also look at the "-R" option, to cause the large blocks to be read in reverse order (i.e. from high LBA towards low LBA).

Well,
Here's the news:

I've started copying with ddrescue in -R (reverse) mode: i've used the ddrescue installed with the ultimate boot cd, and used a receiver disk of 500 GB that i took care of wiping with Darryl Boot and Nuke and that i let in its raw state:
the command i used was: ddrescue -B -v -n -R --force /dev/sdb /dev/sda essai.log

- i made a first attempt and it successfully copied 80 GB without a single error. I stopped the copying to let cool down the disk.

- i started a second session and used the exact same line command: ddrescue started to verify what had already been read; but it went above 80 GB, up to 105 GB, and then started copying, and the counter indicated it started from zero...(don't know if that's normal...)
It copied in all 220 GB , until it encountered it's first error; problem is, it didn't skip it and seemed stuck on it; the disk started clicking, and i had to push 20 times "ctrl+c" to have ddrescue stop it's operations ( the second it stopped, so did the clicking ).

- I tried then to copy in normal forward mode; it copied 4 Gb from the beginning of the disk, then again the clicking started at the same time ddrescue indicated it had encountered a bad block; again, i had to press "ctrl+c" 20 times for the program to stop.

Could anyone tell me if i managed to salvage 80 GB + 220 GB or just 220 GB ?

What should i try next ?

You can see this in the ddrescue logfile - read section 5 in the online ddrescue manual. Look for the "pos/size" lines which end with "+", which means they were successfully read - you need to add up all those size values, to get your answer.

Well,
I had a floppy inserted where i saved the command line for ddrescue to reuse; apparently this is where the logfile was saved: here's what it says:


# Rescue Logfile. Created by GNU ddrescue version 1.14
# Command line: ddrescue -B -v -n -R --force /dev/sdb /dev/sda essai.log
# current_pos current_status
0x7470BF6000 ?
# pos size status
0x00000000 0x7470C06000 ?

Unfortunately your comment about "saving the command line for ddrescue to reuse" on a floppy disk, is not enough info about exactly what was happening, for me to properly understand what you were doing.

All I can say is that, based on your description of what you saw on the screen, I am not convinced that this logfile was actually being used by ddrescue.

I'm not guaranteeing to troubleshoot this issue for you (remote ddrescue support has exceeded my available time / patience in the past, which is why I pointed out the need to have skill / experience to get the best results from it), but I'll just ask one question: Where (i.e. which directory on which drive) is the ddrescue executable, which you were running?