Hello.
Long story short:
My laptop suddenly started act VERY slowly and i made restart. After that i was unable to get into windows-instead "windows startup repair" started. Tried it couple of times and it didnt fixed anything. Also tryed to re-install windows but it didnt passed future 0% mark.
I noticed that hdd activity light is always on-oposite what it should be.
After that hdd became "non bootable device"
I took my laptop to computer repair- they changed hdd and sayd that old one is "completely dead".
Some time later i had a chance to give that hdd to another repair place. They sayd" we rebuilded MBR and you have to install windows now-everything is okey".( maybe i missed some part in translation since it took place in Spain and those ppl just dont speak english ).Anyway that hdd was around 1 hour in theyr place that i doubt that they did anything more.
Ok i tryed to install windows again and ofc it didnt worked.
Then i had some free time and i thinked to try DIY.
wd diagnostic-quik scan sayd "read element error". full scan didnt finished-"there are too much errors, pls contact our support bla bla".
hdd regenerator--lot of delays and bad sectors. also it was unable to fix anything-only new bad sectors appeared.
then i tried stuff from ubcd- made low lev scan etc. mhdd showed many red blocks and also x-s. I Tryed to remap them, but when counts started to go over 100, i stopped.( i think somewhere in Faq there was clausel what sayd that remap doesnt help if bad blocks are over 100).
I also tried to connect hdd to my laptop using usb adaper. It shows two logical discs-E:(system reserved) around 100mb and F: witch is 465GB. First one has some hidden files on it. second is empty. I have not tryed to copy anything to them so i cant tell does it work or not.
Also i tried to use some partition and fail recovery programs, but there is always same problem--they will start find deleted partition aso, but when scan reaches around 20gb then hdd activity light turns off and some time later then hdd himself turns off(stops spinning-completely quiet).
So basicaly im looking for some moor DIY sugestions.
My only intrest is to get some data out of it-if its still there somewhere.
I may be forgot some things what i tryed but you get the mainline.
Sorry about my bad english-it is not my native language.

Hi,

Your drive probably has not only bad sectors, but might have one or more heads failed or failing.

If your data is valuable I would contact a pro for a diagnosis, as you've tried all the options you have for DIY.

If data is not valuable garbage it

I've been getting a lot of these drives in with the sliders ripped off the heads. The odds are, you have a head issue and possibly a more sever issue. Seek the assistance of a pro.

_________________
Luke
Recovery Force Data Recovery

I´Yea, i was affraid that its something i cant fix by myself. It was just interesting to try to fix it-some sort entertainment you know.
Only valuable data im miss is tons of pictures. Its should be usual question give to your self when your hdd failed-
are those pictures worth xxxx$ ? Im not so rich and i doubt that there are any pro service in my country.(Estonia).
Still if some1 can give some clue how much it would cost normaly and what the odds are to get any info out of it?
Also is it wise to try to clone it? i mean if its totaly fails then i still will have that cloned image? or is it useless?