A good friend had a WD Passport suddenly die with "important data" on it. (isn't it always important AFTER the drive dies?).

Well, in his defence he was transporting the data home to back it up. And he had the drive wrapped in TWO neoprene storage bags to protect it. And I know he keeps it in with his camera gear, so the bag is handled carefully anyway.

Anyway, I tore the thing apart - really easy since there are no screws! And liberated a WD 250G 2.5" drive part # WD2500BEVS-00USTO. Serial # WXEY07P25571 in case you want to look it up.

I put it into my eSata drive dock and power it on. I can feel the platter(s) spin up, I can feel the head(s) seek for a few seconds then retract and vibrate (re-synch?) then it tries again. It repeats 3 or 4 times and then goes quiet. I think the platter stopped too.

Its plugged into my m/b SATA port 5. I have 3 other drives and 2 CD Roms connected to other SATA ports. When I run MHDD under "PCI Controllers" I see the 3 other drives (showing part number, ROM version, serial number and total size), and one blank named entry with no size as number "12". No Optical drives are listed.

I enter "12" and press ENTER. Initial screen has a 51 beside ERR in Red. DRSC and DRDY are both blue.

I press F2 and BUSY goes green with ABRT in Red. [RESET] command displays, ERR has D1 beside it. After a few seconds [RECALL] displays, ERR has 41 beside it, and DRDY is blue, and AMNF is red.

Because the platter spun up and the head tried to seek, I assumed the drive controller was still operable, and could at least tell me what is wrong.

Am I incorrect, or is there a specific way to find out what is wrong?

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Thanks in Advance!
Rich.

Sounds like heads / platter damage

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

Thanks for the reply. And is it normal for the controller to get unresponsive when the heads or platter are damaged?

I was expecting it to talk to me and give me an error code that would tell me which it is.

I mean, if its the HEAD then data recovery will be "simple". But if the platter is damaged then its going to be really expensive and much less likely to succeed.

_________________
Thanks in Advance!
Rich.

Yes


No


BIG no


Yes

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

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Thanks in Advance!
Rich.

Hmm.. NOT!



If platters are damaged then it would depend on the area of the platter that has been damaged, but don't expect miracles. So yes, in this case ... you don't wanna know

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Agree 100%

Heads are bad

Not DIY

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Hey, what about this comment from DRC in another post:

wd10ears-not-recognisable-mhdd-and-erros-wipe-out-t19157.html?hilit=AHCI

He says MHDD only recognizes the first 4 SATA ports?

I plugged this disk into SATA port 5 (actually the sixth port since they start at zero).

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Thanks in Advance!
Rich.

Well, did you try a different port to see if something different happened?

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

Heh! not yet.

I was performing a research task suggested by Master Vulcan when I stumbled across that little gem.

I thank you Master Drc. I will attend to it.

Is this "feature" documented in the "requirements"?

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Thanks in Advance!
Rich.

I think I may remember MHDD working with SATA ports past the first four on one or two occasions. Just not usually. I get the impression it may be more of a motherboard/BIOS issue than an MHDD issue.

Either way from the rest of your description I don't think that is your problem.

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

@rcooke:

As drc said, I also doubt that MHDD is your problem, because whatever is being shows as item 12 in MHDD seems to be responding like a sick disk - which is what we expect for that disk of yours. I don't currently have time to answer what I think is your question about the requirements, because I agree with what drc said; the behaviour in IDE compatibility mode depends on your specific motherboard, SATA controller and BIOS, and that all takes time to discuss - which I believe would be wasted time at this stage.

Although other solutions may be possible, for sake of simplicity, and with your SATA controller(s) in IDE compatibility mode, why not temporarily disconnect all other SATA devices; attach your suspect disk to one of the SATA ports that you already saw being recognised by MHDD (i.e. one of those 3 other drives which you mentioned MHDD listed); then you can do whatever you choose to do with MHDD.

Sorted

@Vulcan

Master!

I only humbly suggest that the requirements page for MHDD be edited to reflect a possible issue with more than 4 SATA ports. New m/bs have more and more SATA ports as IDE goes the way of the Dodo. And/Or an issue with certain chipsets - compiling a list of chipsets that have issues would be handy.

I feel a clearer phrase about the need to set one's SATA mode to "IDE" - or at least NOT RAID or AHCI is needed since I actually missed that one entirely when I first read that page.

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Thanks in Advance!
Rich.

I don't see who will have the time & resources to "compil[e] a list of chipsets that have issues", but that's just my view. The need to use IDE mode is implied in the MHDD stated requirement for the PC to use the specified I/O port address ranges at 0x1Fx and 0x17x (i.e. the standard IDE addresses) for disk controller register access.

Remember that MHDD does expect that users have a certain level of understanding of disk interfaces, and never has pretended to be suitable for beginners

I'll send the MHDD author a brief PM on this subject, but I'm not making any commitment about what documentation change might be made, if any.

@Vulcan,

Compile? No, I'm thinking of a thread people can post results to. I'd volunteer to periodically round up the postings into a table to remove duplicates and/or keep a "confirmed" count. Since for such publicly derived data you want to see results replicated by a few people before you have much faith in them.

I said improve the part about disabling RAID or AHCI mode. When I was searching for AHCI posts, I noticed that its not uncommon for people to complain they can't see any drives, and then somebody says "turn OFF AHCI" and presto it works. Making this clearer in the requirements might reduce the frequency of such posts.....

I said might!

If MHDD has a limitation in the number of SATA ports it can enumerate, that really should be documented. Or, if it seems certain chipsets don't enumerate beyond "4" or "2" that is also important. Or maybe its that it only reliably detects SATA ports in the first PCI interface it finds? My m/b has one group of 4 and a second group of 2.

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Thanks in Advance!
Rich.

You were the one who mentioned "compiling a list" so I don't understand your objection above, but it's not important enough for me to care

I've made a documentation suggestion to the author of MHDD, as I said I would do. However, personally, I do not expect him to know or document the exact behaviour of different motherboards, SATA chipsets & BIOS versions in IDE compatibility mode.

I think that's me done on this subject