I've got what seems to be a dying Western Digital SATA drive. It will turn on and I don't hear any evidence of physical damage (no clinking or anything like that when it's seeking) but the power seems to not be constant. What I mean by that is when a great deal of activity is going on (robocopy with 3 files copying simultaneously) or after a period of time (say 15-20 minutes of being on), you can hear the drive actually power off for a second and then come back on. Of course this intermittent power doesn't allow for much copying of data. If left alone for a while it will work for a few minutes at a time but 650+GB of data will take a while to retrieve.

So, that's what brings me here- anyone got any advice to get this data off of the drive or to repair/troubleshoot?

Hi,
You don't say what this disk is in, or the age of the PC or other details that might be relevant.

Is it possible that the PC itself is a suspect? such as a pc that is around 4-5 yrs, the capacitors on the mainboard can start to fail, and inside the power supply of the PC, can have the same issue. Google for bad capacitors in a motherboard for examples.

Also, a photo of the PCB of the HDD may help the gurus, are there any discoloration marks at all?

is there any SMART data available?

cheers

Sorry, little new to this.

I can verify it's not the PC. I've had the hard drive hooked up to multiple external enclosures with very similar if not identical results. Right now i'm working on it on a laptop hooked up to a StarTech SATDOCK22RE enclosure/duplicator.

The hard drive is getting some age on it. There is a date on it: 01 May 2008. The hard drive has been moved from one PC to another maybe in 2009 or 2010 (it was in a custom build and then moved to a Dell Inspiron Desktop). Been working fine for all that time. The thing that tipped me off that something was wrong was the HD light on the Inspiron started staying lit all the time and I pulled the hard drives one at a time until I found this one and started to figure out the above.

The outside of the drive doesn't really show any visible signs of use. There's not even any dust on it.

I don't know how to retrieve SMART data so right now, no, none available.

Any other info I can provide that would be of help I'd be glad to do.

Thanks so much.

HD Sentinel
smartmontools
CrystalDiskInfo
HDDScan

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

SMART data has been added. Looks like there's one concern area (current pending errors count).

Forgive me since I'm new here. Is it appropriate to bump this?

Can you take the PCB off the hard drive and take a few images to post online. It might be a faulty component on the PCB thats overheating and cutting the power quickly.

Images would be helpful...

Shane

I apparently don't have the right tools to remove the PCB from the drive. Every torx screwdriver head I just tried didn't fit. So I'm not sure how to get the PCB off :-\



I'd be surprised if it clones the way it's acting, unless the clone software is robust enough to keep trying through the power cycling it's doing. I'll give it a shot, though. Can't hurt for sure. I've never used WDR or Salvation. How do they work?

Most likely you drive is RAID Edition 2 (RE2) and belongs to Jupiter-Zuma family. The drive is 4-platter, 8-head monster that becomes hot very rapidly. When reaches a critical temperature of about 55 degree C it stops and waits to cool down.
All you need is a fan blowing at the drive.

And you have to clear all pending sectors, of course.

It doesn't appear to wait very long. It does seem to be when it's been on a while but that said when it gets "hot" (or whatever it is getting), it only powers off for a split second, then back on, and off, and on, and off.... definite yo-yo effect. I've tried putting it in the freezer to keep it cooler so it would last longer but that doesn't seem to have any effect. Not sure keeping it cool is the problem but I am an admitted novice.

How do you clear pending sectors?

Can you provide some images of the PCB board, more than likely some component is getting too hot. If you provide some images of the PCB board we can go on from there.

I can't remove it but I can take pictures of the outside? I apparently don't have the right screwdriver to fit the screws on it :-\

Hi,
a Torx screwdriver set should be less than $10 at a hobbyist electronics store such as radioshack/tandy/dick smith/jaycar or ebay. You don't need an expensive one. You could even take it to your local neighborly pc repair shop/ electronics and ask them to unscrew it, I am sure they wouldn't mind.

in the interim, you can take a pic of the exposed side but more than likely the important side is hidden.

sorry, you are going to have to solve the torx issue

Well that's the thing. I have several Torx screwdriver heads (I've got one of those screwdrivers that comes with about 40 different heads you can switch out when needed) but none of them will grip. Guess I can take the drive with me to the store and make sure something they have fits.

I know what you mean I have several kits and many sizes are skipped in between.

Good clone software is designed just for that. It will keep track of what has been cloned and keep chunking away at it till its done

Hi, It would be helpful for a few examples of good cloning software that does this.. Cheers

Yes, please! That would be extremely helpful.

ddrescue is a great free choice. You would have to baby sit the drive and restart it manually.
http://www.technibble.com/forums/showthread.php?t=48269

So yea it's been a while but I finally got a picture of the underside. It's attached to this post.

I also had another thought and wanted to run it by you- I have two of these hard drives and the other is still working fine. Is it worth the effort to back that one up, then swap these boards to see if the bad one will fire up to get the data off of it as well?

Appreciate any insight and thank you for what's already been shared.