Dear experts,

Got one ST31000524AS (7200.12). When powered the spin-up is OK, it starts reading, but never brings SATA up. No head bangs, just a periodic read attempts every 2 seconds. No errors in the terminal. Able to get F3 prompt only when pressing Ctrl-Z during initialization (not later). After several attempts of power-on reset (Ctrl-C) and hitting Ctrl-Z at the right moment I was able to get SATA back for a moment, while multiple reallocate request errors started showing up in the terminal:

InitiateMarkPendingReallocateRequest for disc_lba: 384435E3!
(DOS) Read Unrecoverable Error

InitiateMarkPendingReallocateRequest for disc_lba: 384435E4!
(DOS) Read Unrecoverable Error

InitiateMarkPendingReallocateRequest for disc_lba: 384435E5!
(DOS) Read Unrecoverable Error

Then, eventually, SATA goes offline, and after that I get a bunch of LED:000000CCs and LED:000000EEs. Next power cycle it goes back to an infinite loop again (supposedly, doing those InitiateMarkPendingReallocateReqest).

I was able to retrive SMART data:
Num Flgs normlzd worst raw
1 000F 55 55 0000000147CF11
3 0003 64 64 00000000000000
4 0032 5E 5E 00000000001AED
5 0033 64 64 00000000000000
7 000F 49 3C 00000303EAC675
9 0032 4B 4B 000000000056DA
A 0013 64 64 00000000000000
C 0032 63 63 000000000006C1
B7 0032 64 64 00000000000000
B8 0032 64 64 00000000000000
BB 0032 1 1 00000000000133
BC 0032 64 63 00000100020003
BD 003A 64 64 00000000000000
BE 0022 42 33 00000080800022
C2 0022 22 31 00001600000022
C3 001A 2A D 0000000147CF11
C5 0012 20 20 00000000000AE7
C6 0010 20 20 00000000000AE7
C7 003E C8 C8 00000000000000
F0 0000 64 FD A7E64B00007519
F1 0000 64 FD 000000A8119423
F2 0000 64 FD 000000DC58B572

Also, I got through V1..V40, but that did not reveal anything meaningfull to my untrained eyes, except a quite large G-list.

Even during SATA-online intervals I’m unable to read a single byte out.
[b]Is there any way to disable (suppress) reallocation attempts[\b], so I can at least try to read whatever data is still accessible?

I'm mainly trying to determine whether further data recovery efforts are worthwhile. Seeking a pro recovery might not be an option right now.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

fzavkar, you rock!

Found your post, turned off sparing and bunch of other flags:

F"READ_SPARING_ENABLED",0,22
F"WRITE_SPARING_ENABLED",0,22
F"OFFLINE_SPARING_ENABLED",0,22
F"DAR_ENABLED",0,22
F"DISABLE_IDLE_ACTIVITY",1,22
F"BGMS_DISABLE_DATA_REFRESH",1,22
F"ABORT_PREFETCH",1,22
F"READ_LOOKAHEAD_DISABLED_ON_POWER_UP",1,22
F"READ_CACHING_DISABLED_ON_POWER_UP",1,22

And now I'm imaging

I am deeply grateful!