Hi,
My neighbors hdd crashed and wouldn't boot.
It is a:
MDL: WD400BB-75CAA0
DATE: 02 MAR 2002
DCM: DSEHNA2CH
DS/N MY - 02K223 - 12555 - 232 - 01YE
DP/N 02K223 C/0 MY REV A00
SN: WMA8H3324100

His system has windows xp home and is probably on a NTFS format being it is the original install on a DELL 4400. His PC was showing invalid disk when trying to boot.
I hooked it up to one of my pc's with a 40 pin cable without smart drive on the secondary port and it came up with hdd failure. I had tried the freezer trick and can feel the drive spinning. It starts to spin high but it doesn't make it but it can still be felt spinning. So that should indicate the mechanical part is ok except maybe the heads.

I then tried it on my ASUS P5P800SE with an 80 pin cable. The boot process displayed "Smart Capable but command Failed" next to that drive.

I tried it with no jumper and the jumper on CS. It was on CS in his system and was the only hard drive.

All I am trying to do is recover the data on the drive not repair it.

when I used a 40 pin cable wouldn't that have bypassed the smart capable options?
Since it is being detected by the pc bios's what is causing that to happen? a controller chip on the hd pcb or is it code from the disk?

I was an electronic & computer technician for 20 years but didn't deal much with data recovery like this.
any sugesstions on what to do next?

Thanks
DataCom

Wellcome DataCom,

You came to hddguru (MHDD) and here you can get a super diagnostic program
for free (MHDD)

Connect this faulty drive (please, no more fridge tricks to keep your good neighbourly
relationship) to MHDD and report.

Maybe you will find that MHDD not reading correct model and serial number (not
always easy to see this from BIOS screen printout)

Report here and I am sure someone will give good advice.

If you see the drive in BIOS most likely it's a firmware problem. Quite common for WD.
You will need PC3000 or SalvationData tools to regenerate translator on it.
Where are you located?

I'm in NY.

You were an electronic & computer technician for 20 years and did the freezer crap? woww

u need to buy salvation tools or pc3000 for this type of problem fix...

So am I, and so do I. The odd thing is that sometimes it works . . . even though it "shouldn't".

_________________
http://www.datasaversllc.com

Using the freezer isn't something I would recommend to anybody. I used a silver anti static bag and it was vacuum sealed to prevent moisture. It was not spinning prior to the freezer. Now it spins all the time.
The freezer idea actually came from this forum when I was searching to see if anyone had recovered data from this type/model hdd and some people had good results freezing it. Since it wasn't spinning I didn't have much to loose.

Hi,
where can I get PC3000 or SalvationData tools? I have found some free SalvationData tools but they say they are for a Maxtor 541DX(2B0X0H1). http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/downloads/HHD_Sector_Scan(_Floppy_VERSION)_50389_p/free.htm
Will HDD Regenerator 1.51 work?

Nope, HDDregenerator will fix bad sectors, but cannot access SA.
You really need professional (and expensive) tools.

Dobre

_________________
Murphy was an optimist

Datarecovery in Belgium, Holland, France and Germany
Datarecoverytools http://www.drtools.eu

Update

I used MHDD to get some information.

The drive is not clicking and is spinning ok.

It originally came up at 7200 rpm but showed 7190
the second time rpm was used. I didn't use any commands of MHDD other than simple info.


WDC WD400BB-75CAA0 LBA:78,125,000
SN:WD-WMA8H3324100 FW:16.06V16 CACHE:2048KB Size = 38146MB
To see enhanced information, use command EID <SHIFT+F2>
Init drive: Done
MHDD>EID
WDC WD400BB-75CAA0 LBA:78,125,000
SN:WD-WMA8H3324100 FW:16.06V16 CACHE:2048KB
Supports: HPA AAM DLMC LBA MS16 DMA (UDMA5,MWDMA2)
SMART: Disabled
Size = 38146MB


þ Smart -> ATT
Getting SMART attributes... Error: device error
MHDD>RPM
wait...
RPM = 7190


Is the problem in the pcb?
if it is I could replace that.

7200 is average RPM. 7190 is OK.
PCB is fine.
Most likely it's a firmware problem. And firmware is located on the platter(not on the PCB).

If Mhdd shows the id , did you try a scan ?

I don't think so...

Some of the SMART modules are damaged or unreadable. This happens very frequently with these particular drives. You have to disable " SMART for HDD" in the BIOS of the mainboard. Next you have to start MHDD and try SCAN (F4). If the surface is readable you can recover the data from the drive. If you see only ??????... the drive need "trnslator recalculation". A small program wd.exe can do the trick.

http://files.hddguru.com/download/Softw ... 20Digital/

I need to unstand a few things before I run a scan with Mhdd. Also in windows XP the drive showed up in hardware manager but as 0 byte.

1) My concern is if the head is damaged it would damage the platter if a scan was run...correct?
2) the Mhdd scan is going to show me good and bad sectors....correct?
3) If this information below came from the firmware on the platter then the head is working ok...correct?

WDC WD400BB-75CAA0 LBA:78,125,000
SN:WD-WMA8H3324100 FW:16.06V16 CACHE:2048KB Size = 38146MB
To see enhanced information, use command EID <SHIFT+F2>
Init drive: Done
MHDD>EID
WDC WD400BB-75CAA0 LBA:78,125,000
SN:WD-WMA8H3324100 FW:16.06V16 CACHE:2048KB
Supports: HPA AAM DLMC LBA MS16 DMA (UDMA5,MWDMA2)
SMART: Disabled
Size = 38146MB


þ Smart -> ATT
Getting SMART attributes... Error: device error
MHDD>RPM
wait...
RPM = 7190


thanks

Hi DataCom,

just press F4, if head was damaged you would not report like you did.

Report on result of F4.

You cannot obtain this information from a drive with a bad head.
Go ahead with the Scan.

Thanks

I tried the scan with the selection START LBA: 0
it just changed the window to a blue windows saying START LBA and did nothing.

the other options in the window are:
END LBA: 78124999
REMAP: OFF
TIMEOUT(SEC): 240
SPINDOWN after scan: OFF
Loop Test/Repair: OFF
Erase Delays(DESTRUCTIVE): OFF

Current status scan was typed and selection window is open and the top line has the following selections lite up:

INDX FLASHES 3 times pauses then flashes 3 times again (looping)
DRSC, DRDY, are lite up blue
HPA is also lite blue but yellow letters

I just tried scan again and it didn't do anything.
I checked rpm and that is 7190

I checked my notes from yesterday and I was able to run a scan, some of the blocks were red. Also the drive was much cooler (freezer) when that was done. I noticed the drive was warm today, so I am going to cool the drive and try the scan again. It appears that when the drive warms up access is a problem. The hd temperature also affected the rpm from 7200 to 7190. Not much of a difference. maybe there is a spindle issue.