First, this is just an informational question, as I am trying to understand information about a drive that is not in my possession.

I have been talking with someone that has a Maxtor 6L200R0 that is failing, and the ddrescue log provided looks like it has 6 heads with 2 heads failing (see the image). It was hard to see at first because it looks like this drive has about 1MB read size per head. I had to max out the settings on my viewing tool to see it the pattern. Does this sound correct for this drive? I am used to seeing 50-100MB size reads per head. I think I figured my head skipping algorithm could handle down to 20MB read size per head with the default settings. A drive like this would not work well with the default settings for my head skipping algorithm, and trying to explain how to know what to change the settings to would be about impossible to explain to a novice

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FWIW, here is one way to determine the desired parameters for a healthy drive, but I would not do it with yours.

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

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Even if the read size cannot be verified, can someone at least confirm how many heads this model drive has? I looked online but did not find any specs for this model that included the number of heads. Specs for some close models had either 4 or 6 heads, but nothing for this model.

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What is serial number of this drive?

If you can read SA module 0x1F/31 ("DISK") with HDDSuperTool, then you will see the number of heads. We were able to do this at the HDD Oracle using freeware methods.

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This is the information I was provided:
Device Model: Maxtor 6L200R0
Serial Number: L50FB9MG
As stated in the first post the drive is NOT in my possession. The drive is still likely part of an active recovery attempt by a beginner that I was trying to help, and there is no way I am going to ask for special commands to be run on it. It will be lucky if the drive does not get killed before the best recovery image is achieved

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5 heads

I have adjusted the display on the viewer to get the pattern lined up better, and I think 5 heads does match the pattern (2 heads are weak). That would confirm that the read size per head is a little over 1MB, according to calculations from the log file. The default skip size for the head skipping algorithm of HDDSuperClone would not work well for a drive like this. It would induce runaway skipping which would cause skip resets, although it is stated in the manual that if there are skip resets then the settings may need to be changed.

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I'm a little confused by the arithmetic.

LBA 64000 = CHS 961/4/0
LBA 159037 = CHS 1060/4/1319

That's 100 tracks at 1320 SPT, ie 132000 LBAs. However, the LBA count only increases by 95037. Perhaps I'm having a brain fart?

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A backup a day keeps DR away.