I was running a laptop which developed a power issue and would not progress further than the black and white startup screen upon boot without entering a continuous rebooting loop. So I removed the internal HDD which is a Seagate Momentus thin 320GB and hooked it up to a functioning desktop through sata usb cable and tried to copy some files across.

I noticed that this process was taking a lot longer than usual as It was taking over an hour to transfer a 100mb video. So after the video finished, I removed the drive safely from the desktop and connected it back to via sata usb to begin the long process of copying my files, but when I did this, I could no longer access the drive in windows explorer. I constantly get the following message: E/ is not accessible, the request cannot be performed due to an I/O error.

I have tried various data recovery software but they either cannot locate any partitions, or once scanning has finished, say there are no files to recover. The drive letter and the correct name of the disk are the only pieces of information left when vieweing the drive. Its also worth mentioning that upon inspection in device manager, it lists the drive as a RAW device now, when it was previously NTFS. Also, i can see the 'System Reserved' Drive right next to the E drive and that shows normal file size and can be accessed but there is no viewable folders. The HDD is making very quiet sounds which only can be heard if you put your ear right up to it, sound clip here - http://vocaroo.com/i/s1xlxhDy1QOd

I have also connected it up to HDSentinel and it produces the following report:

Failure Predicted - Attribute: 5 Reallocated Sectors Count, Count of sectors moved to the spare area. Indicate problem with the disk surface or the read/write heads.
There are 2395 bad sectors on the disk surface. The contents of these sectors were moved to the spare area.
The drive found 1423 bad sectors during its self test.
There are 1423 weak sectors found on the disk surface. They may be remapped any time in the later use of the disk.
5580 errors occured during data transfer. This may indicate problem of the device or with data/power cables. It is recommended to examine and replace the cables if possible.
Replace hard disk immediately.

Will cloning the device to a fresh HDD help with the data recovery process? Please let me know your thoughts.

Will cloning the device to a fresh HDD help with the data recovery process?

possibly if you have hardware that can deal with bad sectors, or your linux-fu is good, and there are no other problems creeping in.

if the data are valuable, would recommend local pro data recovery shop asap. at this stage likely not too expensive. messing can seriously diminish your chances further on.

seen plenty give it over to a "mate or relly who knows about PC's" has good intent but no actual experience. A job which could have been salvaged ends up with little or no chance after it's been thrashed to death with disk regen/recovery programs or the inevitable trip to the freezer.

K

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Когда хочется кушать – съешь всё.
Голод не тётка!

The only software tool that can help somewhat is ddrescue in linux as digitalferret mentioned. I posted a tutorial here a while back about how to use it for cloning drives with bad sectors: https://www.data-medics.com/forum/how-t ... -t133.html

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Data Medics - Hard Drive, SSD, and RAID Data Recovery Service Company

Oh ill definitely try to use DDR rescue then. I have Parted magic but I cant seem to find the DDR rescue cloning program anywhere and im a complete noob at using that ROXTERMINAL command prompt. Hopefully I can figure out a way. I just want to try and recover some data... it is important but not important enough to warrant sending it off to a DR company.. if I can get it to work, sweet, if I break it, well that's how it is. How long will Cloning with DDR take? Hopefully not as long as it took to try PhotoRec on it... it had about 18 days left to go!

Assuming set up is well, the cloning length is directly proportionate with the degree of degradation and bad sectors the drive has. The more tampering, the more likely to further the degradation. And sadly there is a high chance this could happen as software based solutions can't cope with drive instability requiring power cycling.
I suggest practicing first on other drives and getting really comfortable with the process.

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Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

just to say there are a few variants of dd.

this is the one to go for
http://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/ma ... anual.html

Well worth the read beforehand.

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Когда хочется кушать – съешь всё.
Голод не тётка!

Gee that document looks intimidating... primarily because I have very limited with using Linux systems in the past. I've used some programs like clonezilla and the general file manager, smart scanning tools with parted magic, but that's because they were very automated (icons on the desktop, click and follow prompts) but with DDR rescue, it seems like everything is done through the ROXTERM prompts which I really struggle with.

Is there not a copy of DDR Rescue which I can run like clonezilla or such?

Okay, some new updates a few weeks later in.

Ended up wrapping my head around Linux systems enough to be able to run DDRescue on the drive.. however once I actually begin the rescue, the recovery ends almost immediately within a split second and simply lists "0 bytes rescued' 'error 1', so it seems that the program isn't even attempting the clone on the drive for what ever reason...

Anyway, I ended up borrowing a friends spare desktop which is more powerful than the PC I have been using to initiate these tests. So I connected the failing drive directly to MOBO via sata and upon viewing the drive in windows exporer, it no longer lists 'G is not accessible because of a device I/O error' Instead, it lists "CRC cyclic redundancy check cannot access" I tried viewing the drive in disk management and it shows as 298G (correct) HEALTHY PARTITION RAW. I think its also noteworthy that I have a small 100mb partition on the failing drive titled "SYSTEM RESERVED" which actually shows 77mb used of 99mb AND I am able to double click into the folder which is empty of course without any errors or delays. This must mean that there is some hope left since I can access this partition on the disk freely? Really hope so. Again, the disk makes no weird sounds and was never dropped or harmed.

Also, I had heard about a RAW recovery program called REMO RECOVER, so I downloaded and scanned the drive to 100% which took over 10 hours, but upon completion, the scan revealed that it recovered 0 files.... not a good sign im assuming? Could this mean that the power issue which caused this problem to my drive has somehow deleted ALL my data on the drive FOREVER? How can such an issue cause TOTAL LOSS of a file system with no chance at recovery?

Please offer what ever suggestions or thoughts you can guys, all ears open.

Have you now tried to use DDRESCUE to image the drive?
I don't think that the data is erased, but "only" not accessible.

You can also give a try with DMDE, to make an image.

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http://www.pclab.com.pt facebook.com/PCLAB.A.T
ACELab partner

No luck with DDRescue unfortunately. I haven't heard about DMDE, but from what I read just now, it definitely looks like it's worth a shot.

I'll report back any new developments - thanks!

Would just like to update that I did try DMDR for windows and I must say, this software has definitely revealed the most information and progressed the farthest compared to any other software I have tried on this failing drive.

It found 'noname 02' ntfs boot sector and a much smaller similar boot sector which Im assuming is the system reserved partition? tried to scan the drive and it returned a whole bunch of numbers in a table... I had to exit the scan at 6% but will definitely give this a go soon and post results.

Will also keep Victoria for windows an option also...

Just thought I'd post my SMART data info on my HDD while I gather more knowledge on how to properly use DMDE.

Failure Predicted - Attribute: 5 Reallocated Sectors Count, Count of sectors moved to the spare area. Indicate problem with the disk surface or the read/write heads.
There are 660 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 is 1 weak sector found on the disk surface. It may be remapped any time in the later use of the disk.
2518 errors occured during data transfer. This may indicate problem of the device or with data/power cables. It is recommended to examine and replace the cables if possible.
Replace hard disk immediately.

So would probing with DMDE still be the best avenue of attack?

You might like to read this:
http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=83&t=557

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Wow, thanks very much for that. I will definitely look at buying this software if it has a better shot at recovering my files.. I had lost hope when DDRescue wouldn't recover anything, but since discovering DMDE and having the program actually find two partition tables which no other software could do, I have regained hope again.

Right now I'm searching for a decent desktop so I can do the recover from there as my day to day laptop just isn't good enough for such tasks. As soon as I find one, as per your advice I'm going to clone the hdd first. I'll try DMDE first and if there's no luck there I'll purchase DDI 4 and give it a go.

Biggest problem I am facing is that I'm only semi proficient in using understanding such software (had no idea about Linux before this, took me a few days to learn enough in order to perform recovery though) so using something like DMDE is a little tough, let alone what DDI4 looks like

I really do appreciate everyone's advice on this. As I said, professional recovery is out of the question. I miss my files, but not enough to pay big bucks for - I either fix it myself or destroy it, simple

Yeah, I had no idea just how expensive that was.. looks like its up to DMDE, or nothing.

Just a little update, im getting my hands on a decent desktop tomorrow so I can begin the cloning of my failing hdd with DMDE... any one have any experience with this software? it was the only software that actually found a partition table on my HDD as opposed to almost every other recovery software which either found nothing at all on the drive, or simply froze during the scan, so this feels like my only hope here =D

Any insight is appreciated.

DMDE is likely to fail as it is just software. Software based solutions are unable to deal with bad sectors. However, if you want to confirm specifically on your drive, then hammer it. Make sure you are at peace with ruining the drive and data.

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Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

You are in Australia. Send your drive to Frank, he should be able to recover your data in a couple hours for less than $20.

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Luke
Recovery Force Data Recovery

Frank? What is that??

Model number is:

Seagate momentus 320g thin
ST320LT020

I will be attempting DMDE software cloning today. If no luck, will investigate Hardware cloning next...

Wish me luck!

Uhhhhh WTF!?

I connected the failing drive just a minute ago and ran a quick smart scan before i attempted the copy and the results are very different than the one I ran a few weeks ago....

Failure Predicted - Attribute: 5 Reallocated Sectors Count, Count of sectors moved to the spare area. Indicate problem with the disk surface or the read/write heads.
There are 2440 bad sectors on the disk surface. The contents of these sectors were moved to the spare area.
The drive found 1199 bad sectors during its self test.
There are 1199 weak sectors found on the disk surface. They may be remapped any time in the later use of the disk.
6618 errors occured during data transfer. This may indicate problem of the device or with data/power cables. It is recommended to examine and replace the cables if possible.
Replace hard disk immediately.

Reallocated sectors count is still 5, but the bad sectors have almost quadrupled and the weak sectors jumped from 1, to 1199.... Now im scared to do anything :/