how do I recover data from a non responsive hard drive?

[ICIT2LOL]

@Icit2, I thought I had already answered this question in my post #113.

"If our suspicion that the HDD is developing bad sectors is true, some of the files copied either with TestDisk or live Linux will be corrupt even if we succeed in copying.

ddrescue while cloning the drive tries to repeatedly read the bad sectors and extract the data in it, which conventional cloning software like Macrium Reflect will not do.The algorithm used in ddrescue is different with focus on bad sector recovery as it clones. First pass clones all good sectors. Subsequent passes - as many as you can order - will target only the bad sectors as logged in its logfile - and try to extract the feeble data in it."

Normally 3 passes is considered sufficient to extract data from a bad sector the assumption being if in three passes a bad sector cannot be recovered, more number of passes may not do anything better except increasing the recovery time..That bad sector is considered irrecoverable and naturally some files recovered will remain corrupted. But the best has been done to recover bad sectors.

I am only interested in seeing how many passes Anshad is going to recommend based on his personal experience.

Yep I was too busy concentrating on something else - sorry

 

[mjf]

Anshad, et al: CrystalDiskInfo can affect Smart values. This might improve disk access time and also buy a bit more time before SMART flags he disk.

CrystalDiskInfo is a reporting tool. This is how you might use it to monitor the ongoing health of your drive.
http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware...disk-s-m-r-t-capability-benefits-risks-3.html
If you continue to get reallocated sector count increases it's time to dump the drive.

 

[Slartybart]

Anshad, et al: CrystalDiskInfo can affect Smart values. This might improve disk access time and also buy a bit more time before SMART flags he disk.

CrystalDiskInfo is a reporting tool. This is how you might use it to monitor the ongoing health of your drive.
http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware...disk-s-m-r-t-capability-benefits-risks-3.html
If you continue to get reallocated sector count increases it's time to dump the drive.

That's what I thought too - reporting tool, but was convinced otherwise. Now, I'm not sure.

If I read your post on the thread you pointed to, it sounds more as though the sliders affect CrystalDisk reporting health status (good, bad, etc). That makes sense to me.

I'll have to play with it again - move the sliders in CrystalDisk and check SMART with another utility (I thought I did that over a year ago, but..... I'll do it soon for my own satisfaction)

Thanks for the correction, someone has to keep me honest

Bill

 

[Canuck67]

Hey hey... remember me? I am now the proud owner of a new 2TB hard drive.

So I'm ready to do the data recovery from my old drive.

I would like to make this my boot drive... so how do I do that? and do I do it before, or after we attempt the data recovery?

Thanks again guys.

 

[Anshad Edavana]

Anshad, et al: CrystalDiskInfo can affect Smart values. This might improve disk access time and also buy a bit more time before SMART flags he disk.

One member reportedly used it on a failing drive and the drive has been fine for 5 years. SMART isn't all that smart sometimes. I recently applied this method to a troublesome ext WD drive - the results are inconclusive, but the symptoms were completely different.

Actually SMART is only a log of the HDD activities and if you know what each attributes are meant and which one of them are important, you will be able to develop an idea about the health condition of a disk in question. The number one rule when reading SMART is to not use a tool which predicts disks health based on SMART attribute's values. For example there is "HDD Sentinal" which predicts approximately how many days a disk will work which is not reliable at all. In fact SMART never give us an estimate about the remaining life of a disk but by analysing the attributes, we will can build a fairly good idea. For example, if SMART shows too may head seek failures, that clearly indicates that internals of the disk are not in a good condition and the head may got completely stuck on some day so make sure to take backup of important data.

Among all other attributes, i will always pay special attention to "Current Pending Sector" as that attribute will give us an idea about the disk's surface condition. On an ideal disk it should be zero. If it is a non zero value, it means either there are no more spare sectors to remap ( G-List is full )or the sectors are so defective and hence the disk can't read the data stored on them before marking them as bad.

When we run HD manufacturer's diagnostic tool or use "Crystal DiskInfo" to reset the counter, SMART chip will actually ignore the data stored on the bad sectors and will remap them forcefully. With the bad sectors "disappeared", the disk will be usable again but it's reliability will be compromised. Some works for months and some may last long for years. My general recommendation is to not use the disk for storing critically important data.

Perhaps, Anshad is learning a bit from our input as well.

In fact a lot . I learned a lot from various tech support forums including "Sevenforums". The quality of support people get here always amazed me but i never had the courage to post in here mainly because i know my English sucks.

 

[Anshad Edavana]

@Canuck67

Using the new 2TB disk as a boot drive is not possible at this time. Our first goal should be is to rescue data from the failing disk to the new one using "DDrescue". Once the data is safely extracted to the new 2 TB disk, you can copy all data to the free partition of your main OS disk and then re-partition the new 2 TB and install Windows to it.

It is midnight in my place- retire for now. I will post detailed instructions about the cloning process tomorrow.

 

[Canuck67]

@Canuck67

Using the new 2TB disk as a boot drive is not possible at this time. Our first goal should be is to rescue data from the failing disk to the new one using "DDrescue". Once the data is safely extracted to the new 2 TB disk, you can copy all data to the free partition of your main OS disk and then re-partition the new 2 TB and install Windows to it.

It is midnight in my place- retire for now. I will post detailed instructions about the cloning process tomorrow.

nice. thank you. sleep well.

 

[Layback Bear]

I have one major rule about a hard drive.
If I have doubts about it I will try to get the information off of it within reason and then take a hammer to it. Done.
If you don't have a backup well you have also learned a lesson.

 

[mjf]

Sector count changes over time is what really matters. CrystalDiskInfo is a monitoring/reporting tool that allows you reset the warning thresholds. Resetting the thresholds will cause the warning lights to disappear but you need to carefully monitor the drive. If the thresholds are exceeded again in say 6 months then the drive should probably be discarded.

 

[Anshad Edavana]

Sector count changes over time is what really matters. CrystalDiskInfo is a monitoring/reporting tool that allows you reset the warning thresholds. Resetting the thresholds will cause the warning lights to disappear but you need to carefully monitor the drive.

I don't use "CrystalDiskInfo" so never played with the counter resetting tricks. The firm i am working for undertakes "Annual Maintenance Contracts". I have to deal with failing hard drives almost every day. If the number of bad sectors exceeds 10, i will dump the drive and replace it with a new one. If it is around 10, i would run manufacturer's diagnostic tool to repair the defects. "Seagate Seatool" , "WD Data lifeguard Diagnostic" and "Hitachi Drive Fitness Test" supports repairing bad sectors by remapping them. One can also use "Victoria" , "MHDD" or "Vivard" to do the same job. If the total number of bad sectors are less than 10, usually the repaired drive will work some more time - some disks i fixed 3-4 years ago still works. If "CrystolDiskInfo" only resets the "Threshold" without actually remapping the pending sectors, the disk won't last longer. I should check whether it performs remapping the next time i get a failing disk.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I have one major rule about a hard drive.
If I have doubts about it I will try to get the information off of it within reason and then take a hammer to it. Done.
If you don't have a backup well you have also learned a lesson.

I don't ever bother check my HDDs' health. I make frequent data backups—at least once a day—and system backups—at least once a week—so if a drive fails on me, I won't lose data. If I add or change data to my computer that can't be otherwise replaced, I immediately back it up instead of waiting for my daily backup; it only takes a few minutes. If a drive starts acting up any, it's history. I'll install a new one and repurpose the old one (I have three dead 3.5" drives I keep around for making PSU SATA power cables). The fourth drive to die on me (I've had only three die so far) will probably be kept around for the same purpose as the other three and any after that will probably get dissected for the magnets, etc.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

I am with Lady F I do weekly back up and really once the data is saved as Layback Bear says just trash the old rive.

The cloning is easy enough but all you need to do si install and then download the back up stuff.

 

[mjf]

If "CrystolDiskInfo" only resets the "Threshold" without actually remapping the pending sectors, the disk won't last longer.

It is a reporting tool only as far as I am aware and I believe it is the HDD firmware that does remapping. I also understand that HDDs can have bad sectors that are mapped out before they leave the factory and you never see them in the SMART data. Some people who come to this forum are not flushed with cash and may want to think twice before totally discarding a HDD. If one of my drives developed a reallocated sector I'd use it for less data critical activities and monitor its condition.

Backing up data is a different issue to deciding when to dump a drive. I have numerous images on 2 external drives using 2 imaging programs but I still occasionally look at the health of my drives. If one was acting up I'd be watching more closely.

 

[Anshad Edavana]

@Canuck67

Please perform the below steps.

1. From Windows, rename your "Parted Magic" USB disk's label to "pmagic".

2. Disconnect the boot drive and connect failing HDD to SATA port one and new HDD to SATA port 2.

3. Boot to "Parted Magic" and open a terminal Window. Ente "fdisk -l" and capture a screenshot using the screenshot tool. Make sure to capture "Active Window" to capture only the terminal window.

4. Open "File Manager" and you will see all recognizable partitions are listed on the left pane.

Open your USB flash disk labeled "Pmagic" and tak full screen screenshot.

Post both screenshots with next reply ( Make sure to not unplug the disks or connecting new one )

 

[Canuck67]

okay. I'll remove the working drive and replace it with the faulty one, and install the brand new one.

then reboot using the usb and take the screenshots.

while still there, I'll open up firefox and post the screenshots here without disconnecting anything.

 

[Canuck67]

here they are...

 

[Anshad Edavana]

Let's start the cloning process with "ddrescue". A typical "ddrescue" command line format will be like this ;

ddrescue <source disK> <destination disk> <log file>

Log file is optional but it will provide resume functionality. The screenshot you uploaded shows following info.

/dev/sda is the 500 GB sized source disk.

/dev/sdb is the 2000 GB sized destination drive.

/dev/sdc is the USB flash drive. It is mounted on the mount point /media/sdc1. Mount point is similar to drive letters on Windows. Just like we need to access partitions through drive letters in Windows, we access partitions in Linux via mount points.

Now open a terminal Window and enter the below command exactly.

ddrescue -d -f -r3 /dev/sda /dev/sdb /media/sdc1/recovery.log

You will see a Window similar to the below example.

Depending on the level of surface damage, it may take several hours to complete the cloning. When the last time i used "ddrescue" to clone a 500 Gb HDD with lot of bad sectors, it took almost one day to rescue as much as readable sectors. So wait patiently until it shows the "finished" message and then post a screenshot of the active window.

Btw, if "Time since last successful read" shows more than 3 hours, it means the cloning process hanged. In that case, press "ctrl + c" to abort the cloning and post a screenshot of the window.

 

[Canuck67]

okay, I'll open a window and enter...

ddrescue -d -f -r3 /dev/sda /dev/sdb /media/sdc1/recovery.log

I'll post back here with a screenshot when finished, whenever that is...

have a good sleep.

 

[Canuck67]

so after about 10 hours.... the screen changed to this... it looks like it started over???

 

[Canuck67]

when I last looked at it, the ipos: and opos: were both close to 500000 MB