HDD Failures

[Anunnak]

Hello all

 

Recently my external HDD, a Hitachi Simple Drive(2009 purchase), I think it had 800+ operational days... or 19500 hrs or so, first gen I believe, has crapped out on me over night(quite literally), went from 99% according to HD Sentinel to 8% and dropping. It's disconnected, I managed to retrieve some of my favourite TV shows, and a few game backups.

 

1.8 TB of Data gone, or is it? I'm looking for programs that would allow me to retrieve the 'lost' info, Id' like to recover as much as I can, I can always re-download the basics. The HDD contained, all my music/movies/pictures/Some games(ISO)/mods/TV shows and you guess it porn lol, now the only thing I want to recover really are my pictures(vacation and family photos, etc.), and music.

 

I can see the HD on my computer, and access it as well, but when I go to transfer files it stops or errors pop up, there ARE bad sectors, don't remember how many. If anyone has any ideas or info on programs that may help I'd appreciate it.

 

I noticed SpinRite is good option, I'm just not sure if it's ideal for the problem I have. Just looking for a solution if possible.

 

Thanks

[Sarissi]

Your files may not be recoverable. Unfortunately. I had two internal HDDs go bad on me and I lost things on both. Fortunately, I use external HDD only for keeping backup copies of software and data files, and only lost what had not been copied to the external. I always keep the external turned off, unless I am using it to copy files to.

[FMod]

The data can almost always be recovered. In your case it appears clearly recoverable. For perfect recovery you will however need to do some serious work, using serious software. Depending on how valuable the data is, two alternatives are professional recovery (it costs $$$) and trying a simple freeware tool.

 

Spinrite is not serious software. What's worse, it's very liable to destroy your data. It's a leftover from floppy and 5-megabyte drive days. Do not use it under any circumstances unless you know exactly what you're doing (and you wouldn't be asking here if you did).

 

I'm clearly not going to try explaining how to use software such as MHDD. The most you could use is probably R-Studio. Use the demo version first; if and only if you can use it, and can recover small files, and can see the files you need, but it won't recover them, then consider buying it. Only if.

 

Your case is probably not so serious as to actually require such software. At least it doesn't appear serious to me, but I'm not a pro. A better tool for the job is probably ddrescue. Read the manual and try to copy the files with it.

In either case disconnect the hard drive when not recovering data from it and do not attempt to use it other than for recovering your data, before you recover it.

[Anunnak]

Thanks FMod, I read up on some sites that when the drive is visible through 'My Computer', and IS accessible the Data is very likely to be recovered, which is my case. Thanks for warning me about SpinRite, although it is recommended I'm sure it's meant for pros and people who KNOW what they're doing. In the meanwhile I gotta pick up another HDD to transfer what I can.

 

I went with R-Studio, as Ddrescue requires things I don't know about...

 

Thanks for the replies

[FMod]

Thanks for warning me about SpinRite, although it is recommended I'm sure it's meant for pros and people who KNOW what they're doing.

Not quite. Spinrite was originally written back when a hard drive itself would often cost as much or more than the data on it. Its main weaknesses are a non-sparing read algorithm, writing the data back to the same drive, and trying to mix up data recovery and hard drive repair. So it's for people who have one HDD (not everyone had that many), and are concerned about both restoring the data and getting some more life out of their hard drive.

Today this kind of thinking is completely out of whack; the first rule of data recovery is you don't touch the old medium any more than you have to, and definitely don't write back to it.

 

The difference in operation is that Spinrite will read each bad sector 100-1000 times, write the data in a good sector, then read another bad sector. ddrescue (and any other modern software) will read the whole group of sectors selected for recovery, write it to another drive, then read it again and try to get more good data out, then read again.

 

If bad sectors are really bad sectors, it doesn't matter. But today they rarely are. So many "bad sectors" appearing so suddenly more likely indicates a mechanical problem with the drive, like a failing bearing or an internal scratch. Any use of the drive continues to damage it. It's good that it's external, that means you can easily unplug it when not working with the data.

 

 

 

I went with R-Studio, as Ddrescue requires things I don't know about...

If you have issues using ddrescue, make sure you can use R-Studio, it's actually more complicated. ddrescue is as close as it comes to one-click solutions among functional software, and it's freeware, but it's based on Linux. So things you don't know about may well be something easily found on the net.

[slimhouse]

You need. PhotoRec 6.10 [or latest] - from (Author) cgsecurity.org its nothing short of a fantastic tool for

retrieving practically every (common) known system files and extention files

 

It has two powerfull tools that work off of a DOS prompt window (still opens on your desktop.. so not scarry!!)

 

a) PhotoRec -searches drive for stuff like .jpg .png .tiff .txt .xml .gif .psd .pdf etc (list is vast)

 

b) TestDisc -be a little careful with this one, it can recover #Bad sectors, Wipe your #Boot sector and then

rewrite a fresh boot.ini file to (re-enable) a lost non start #Hardrive.

 

(tip) no mouse required, use only Up/Down arrow keys and Enter buttons, If you 'click' away to something else

on your desktop screen (while PhotoRec is open) you will have to mouse-click the top of the PhotoRec window

again to return to just useing the tool and keys only again. ;)

 

(tip) Put #bad HDD in external USB setup, make sure little plastic 'jumper' is placed

across the :Slave (2-pin) at rear of duff hardrive -you don't want any 'nasties' that

caused the #crash to migrate across to your Main Drive!

 

(Last) Make sure your search is on the external drive, because ALL available drives will

be listed including any disc in your DVD-Rom (remove it).

Edited March 8, 2012 by slimhouse