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Samsung HD204UI one platter not accessible?!?

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Ghostman09

Post subject: Samsung HD204UI one platter not accessible?!?

Posted: June 8th, 2016, 7:20

Joined: June 8th, 2016, 7:05
Posts: 10
Location: Germany

I have a problem with my hdd. From one second to another i got much pending sectors and read errors...

I've attached a screenshot of smart data and a screenshot of ddrescue log viewer.

This looks somehow as if an entire side of a platter no longer accessible. According to my research the drive have three platters... with two sides... so when i calculate 100/6*5 .. i got my 83% of recoverable data.

The drive doesn't make unusual noises. Everything sounds normal.

This condition seems stable.

I have already cleaned the contacts on the backside of the PCB.
Unfortunately has brought nothing.

I have access via TTL Adapter.. i attached a Logfile on access a bad sector...

Does anyone have an idea what I could try to get to the missing round about seventeen percent of data from the drive?

I am grateful for every idea.

Thank you very much!

Attachments:

TTL_OUTPUT_HD204UI.txt [1.38 KiB]
Downloaded 833 times

samsung2.jpeg [ 595.4 KiB | Viewed 13800 times ]

samsung3.jpeg [ 337.08 KiB | Viewed 13800 times ]

samsung1.jpeg [ 91.62 KiB | Viewed 13800 times ]

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labtech

Post subject: Re: Samsung HD204UI one platter not accessible?!?

Posted: June 8th, 2016, 8:16

Joined: August 18th, 2010, 17:35
Posts: 3669
Location: Massachusetts, USA

I suspect a failing head on at least one surface.

The calculation of 83% is often misleading. It is not quite accurate. If there are bad sectors within a file, then the file is not good, despite imaging 90% of its residing sectors. This is especially the case with large files. Due to design, this Samsung model is more tolerant in getting files recovered compared to other drives.

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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

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Ghostman09

Post subject: Re: Samsung HD204UI one platter not accessible?!?

Posted: June 8th, 2016, 8:34

Joined: June 8th, 2016, 7:05
Posts: 10
Location: Germany

The problem occured on copying many small files from another to this disc. The complete disc is dmcrypt encrypted under Linux. The encryption is 4K block based... and i was able to create a raw dump after encryption layer and before encryption layer.. but the same amount of recovered blocks.

Could this be a software problem? There was probably a problem that can arise from NCQ under certain circumstances. Then probably some blocks were written not physically. The proper update of samsung I have been applied after the incident.

Any ideas how to investigate the problem further?

The data are not so important, i'm not willing to pay several hundred dollars/euros.

Could it possibly have been a contact problem, which I fixed by the clean the contacts? But the blocks are now somehow blacklisted?!?

Thanks!

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Ghostman09

Post subject: Re: Samsung HD204UI one platter not accessible?!?

Posted: June 8th, 2016, 9:53

Joined: June 8th, 2016, 7:05
Posts: 10
Location: Germany

Maybe i can use the SHT demo for a more accurate analysis?

Would be great if the experts here could give me a little support.

Thanks!

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labtech

Post subject: Re: Samsung HD204UI one platter not accessible?!?

Posted: June 8th, 2016, 11:04

Joined: August 18th, 2010, 17:35
Posts: 3669
Location: Massachusetts, USA

Ghostman09 wrote:

Would be great if the experts here could give me a little support.

Are you saying I am not an expert?!? No worries...

Not sure how you can test heads with free/DEMO tools. Could understand better if finding out more accurately zone sizes and then pay attention to cycles during surface scans and so on. But again, could be misinterpreted due to inexperience.

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

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Ghostman09

Post subject: Re: Samsung HD204UI one platter not accessible?!?

Posted: June 8th, 2016, 12:27

Joined: June 8th, 2016, 7:05
Posts: 10
Location: Germany

I did not say that you are not a expert. My English is not so good!

But your post was not helpful for me. So i just wanted to hear the opinions of other "experts".

For me, the whole subject is new. And i'm just think that there are probably other possibilities as a failing head. No way to investigate your "failing head" assumption?

If you're right, the repair is not possible without professional help and really expensive. Isn't it?

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fzabkar

Post subject: Re: Samsung HD204UI one platter not accessible?!?

Posted: June 8th, 2016, 15:25

Joined: September 8th, 2009, 18:21
Posts: 16960
Location: Australia

I'm no expert, but ISTM that your ddrescue log viewer is telling us that there is one completely dead head (head #3).

Your TTL log appears to be telling us that defects are being written to the RList. I don't know what would happen if the RList were to become full. Would the drive become read-only, or would it go offline?

Drives normally write several sequential tracks on one head before switching to the next head. Most seem to write 100 tracks or so, but Samsungs write as much as 1GB, AFAIK. That's why you have a better chance of recovering complete files.

You can see this behaviour in a short-stroked read benchmark in HD Tune.

How to determine number of heads using HD Tune:
http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php? ... 650&p=1796

Here is a good explanation of the serpentine nature of the tracks:
http://hddscan.com/doc/HDD_Tracks_and_Zones.html

BTW, cleaning the HDA contacts would be pointless. All heads are accessed via common read and write channels, and head selection is done via serial data and clock pins. There are no separate pathways for individual heads.

Preamp Block Diagrams:
http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=229&p=582

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

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fzabkar

Post subject: Re: Samsung HD204UI one platter not accessible?!?

Posted: June 8th, 2016, 16:25

Joined: September 8th, 2009, 18:21
Posts: 16960
Location: Australia

fzabkar wrote:

I'm no expert, but ISTM that your ddrescue log viewer is telling us that there is one completely dead head (head #3).

Sorry, I assumed that the screenshot began at LBA 0. This is not the case, so I have probably identified the wrong head. Not that this makes much difference to the outcome ...

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

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Ghostman09

Post subject: Re: Samsung HD204UI one platter not accessible?!?

Posted: June 8th, 2016, 17:07

Joined: June 8th, 2016, 7:05
Posts: 10
Location: Germany

@fzabkar:
You're right .. this was the LBA 0 ... there was no partition table and no partitions on the drive... with linux i dmcrypted the complete device.
So the only way to get the complete data from the HDD is a replacement of the head group?
I suppose the chance to swap the head group as a layman, approaches zero?
The chance to finding a matching donor plate is not bad. But to find someone who can replace it for little money is probably difficult.

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fzabkar

Post subject: Re: Samsung HD204UI one platter not accessible?!?

Posted: June 8th, 2016, 18:27

Joined: September 8th, 2009, 18:21
Posts: 16960
Location: Australia

Ghostman09 wrote:

I suppose the chance to swap the head group as a layman, approaches zero?

Maybe 1% :-))

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=33528

Ghostman09 wrote:

The chance to finding a matching donor plate is not bad. But to find someone who can replace it for little money is probably difficult.

ISTR there was a data recovery company in Croatia offering a headswap service (plus data recovery) for approximately US$300.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

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Ghostman09

Post subject: Re: Samsung HD204UI one platter not accessible?!?

Posted: June 8th, 2016, 18:45

Joined: June 8th, 2016, 7:05
Posts: 10
Location: Germany

I expected that I can see on the TTL debugport a more specific error message.
Here the linux debug output:

Code:

[12483.277645] ata2.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x200 SErr 0x0 action 0x0
[12483.277650] ata2.00: irq_stat 0x40000008
[12483.277654] ata2.00: failed command: READ FPDMA QUEUED
[12483.277662] ata2.00: cmd 60/08:48:88:7e:4d/00:00:06:00:00/40 tag 9 ncq 4096 in
[12483.277662]          res 41/40:00:88:7e:4d/00:00:06:00:00/40 Emask 0x409 (media error) <F>
[12483.277665] ata2.00: status: { DRDY ERR }
[12483.277667] ata2.00: error: { UNC }
[12483.290236] ata2.00: configured for UDMA/133
[12483.290252] sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Unhandled sense code
[12483.290255] sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb]  
[12483.290257] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE
[12483.290260] sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb]  
[12483.290262] Sense Key : Medium Error [current] [descriptor]
[12483.290265] Descriptor sense data with sense descriptors (in hex):
[12483.290267]         72 03 11 04 00 00 00 0c 00 0a 80 00 00 00 00 00 
[12483.290275]         06 4d 7e 88 
[12483.290280] sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb]  
[12483.290282] Add. Sense: Unrecovered read error - auto reallocate failed
[12483.290284] sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] CDB: 
[12483.290286] Read(10): 28 00 06 4d 7e 88 00 00 08 00
[12483.290293] end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 105741960
[12483.290297] Buffer I/O error on device sdb, logical block 13217745
[12483.290314] ata2: EH complete

Maybe I can buy on Ebay a few of these drives and practice a little.

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fzabkar

Post subject: Re: Samsung HD204UI one platter not accessible?!?

Posted: June 8th, 2016, 19:39

Joined: September 8th, 2009, 18:21
Posts: 16960
Location: Australia

If you're intent on giving it a go, first try your patient's PCB on the donor drive and ensure that the donor's preamp/headstack is a match for your drive.

The following message is telling you that a 785x preamp was found.

Code:

*PA VID=0000 PN=0009 Rev=0001- 785x Found

An incompatible preamp would result in an "INVALID" message.

Your model isn't listed, but this is how the professionals do it:

http://hddsurgery.com/pdfs/HDDS_Sam_F1-F2-F3_p2-3_a.pdf
http://hddsurgery.com/data-recovery-too ... f2-f3-p2-3
http://www.youtube.com/v/kaBx2_zVzfk?en ... autohide=1

I would practice on a donor by removing and replacing its own headstack several times and then checking that it still works. There are many Youtube videos by Scott Moulton on this subject.

Here is another good article:
http://hddguru.com/articles/2006.02.17- ... k-Q-and-A/

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

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day1data

Post subject: Re: Samsung HD204UI one platter not accessible?!?

Posted: June 9th, 2016, 3:35

Joined: January 6th, 2015, 2:21
Posts: 186
Location: Germany

Unfortunately if your not going to do the head swap in a clean room or have the experience or tools for head removal there is a 0% chance the head swap will work.
If head swaps worked so easy then all us data recovery experts would be out of a job.

This model of drive almost always has surface defects. Even after the heads are swapped you will need a hardware imaging tool that can read in PIO mode or you won't get much data.

_________________
Web: https://www.day1data.de

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Ghostman09

Post subject: Re: Samsung HD204UI one platter not accessible?!?

Posted: June 9th, 2016, 5:27

Joined: June 8th, 2016, 7:05
Posts: 10
Location: Germany

Thanks for your hints. The data is not so important that I want to spend several hundred euros for the rescue.
Without the right tools it looks pretty hopeless. And buy the tool for exactly one disk also is not worth.
Even with the right tools but without clean room it will look bad.
But I am open for ideas or offers.

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drHDD

Post subject: Re: Samsung HD204UI one platter not accessible?!?

Posted: June 9th, 2016, 18:32

Joined: October 5th, 2015, 18:53
Posts: 488
Location: US

I will get your data back for 100 euros plus shipping.

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Ghostman09

Post subject: Re: Samsung HD204UI one platter not accessible?!?

Posted: June 10th, 2016, 5:53

Joined: June 8th, 2016, 7:05
Posts: 10
Location: Germany

Thank you. Have sent a PM to you.

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Ghostman09

Post subject: Re: Samsung HD204UI one platter not accessible?!?

Posted: June 29th, 2016, 10:26

Joined: June 8th, 2016, 7:05
Posts: 10
Location: Germany

In order to conclude here. drHDD has successfully repaired my hard drive. Since I already had a local ddrescue image he only needed to provide the missing areas over the internet. The most time was needed for postal transport from germany to canada and for the data upload. But for this price I can live with it. He knows definitely what he does. I can fully recommend him. All contact was friendly and qualified.

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