jaclaz

abnfire, from what you write your drive is broken . See here for the definition of this adjective: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=144232 http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=144232&st=23 There is NO way you will be able to recover ANYTHING from it, expecially if you insist on throwing at it random attempts without a minimum of - if not knowledge - common sense. Sum up: your drive was dying you ASSUMED that it could be fixed with the cure for the BSY or the LBA0 problem, notwithstanding the symptoms were COMPLETELY different you applied them nonetheless and by pure chance the drive (temporarily) worked again you then decided to over-stress it by running different data recovery programs on it you additionally managed (by working with a data recovery program WITHOUT an adequate UPS) to probably zap it with a blackout/surge you continued fiddling with it after it started developing a scratching sound JFYI, should unfortunately happen again on another drive, you are advised to ask for help BEFORE even THINKING of doing ANYTHING to the dying drive. For the record the standard procedure is to IMAGE as much as possible the drive (offline) onto another surely working drive and NEVER run a data recovery program (actually never run ANYTHING at all but the imaging program) on a dying drive. From the symptoms you posted, recovery of anything (if possible at all) from that drive, is outside the reach of any hobbyist, even of very, very knowledgeable one, by chance having the needed tools. Your only hope, and unfortunately and apparently a very feeble one , is to find a good professional recovery service. Be prepared to pay something in the order of magnitude of several hundred dollars to a few thousands for the recovery of the data (if possible at all). jaclaz

Why it is so difficult to READ the read-me-first BEFORE asking the SAME questions? You do a test with Seagate software of the drive, BOTH the short DST AND the LONG DST one. If ANY of them fails , it means that you THOUGHT you are having a "perfectly functional drive", but that was a mere ASSUMPTION on your part, and you SHOULD RMA the drive. If BOTH the tests are OK, your ASSUMPTION was correct. Now, go to the read-me-first: and READ point #5 (and given links within). Let me know if the way I wrote about this in there is difficult and I'll ttry to amend it. jaclaz

deacon: http://regularbc.org/deacon.htm devcon: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/311272/en-us jaclaz

Well, actually the culprit (or - more accurately the one I pointed to as having created the short by wagging her tail) simply got a couple less biscuits than usual for a few days. Both the females (human and dog) never actually knew the truth.... but you know how women are, notwithstanding the dog's responsability for the accident, she "sensed" something and I was told NOT to connect anything anyway, EVER AGAIN... jaclaz

An old trick of the trade tell her it is a new USB powered aromizer... or a new age ambience enhancer At least mine used to fell for these kind of tricks, at least till the day I zapped accidentally one of her PC's ports jaclaz

I am happy for you , but maybe if you post the name of (and possibly also a link to) this little program, someone else may benefit from your findings. jaclaz

If the drives are NTFS formatted, using this may give some bettering in the performance : http://ndff.hotbox.ru/en/ jaclaz

I am missing the logic... jaclaz

You won't like it. http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=16534&st=23 jaclaz

I don't. @CrazyDoctor, you have already been told WHAT to look for to determine if a drive is compatible and WHERE to find the info. You have also been already told how switching a PCB should be done AND the procedure that is needed (soldering/desoldering, etc.). You have also been told that a Head swap is NOT something within your capabilities (yet). You cannot ask the same questions, every time you get a new dead hard disk, comeon... If the question is to be intended literally: The answer is NO, and additionally even if the PCB was compatible, I seriously doubt you would be able to do a proper PCB swap, and I am pretty sure you would be able to do a head swap. jaclaz

I see that it's useless trying to convince you that you have a dying hard disk suffering from intermittent problems and that you should start a new thread about the matter, in order NOT to clog this one, which is about a very simple kind of problem (BSY or LBA0) with a fix that invariably results in a binary ON/OFF, either UNbricked and fully functional or bricked. jaclaz

I may add that it is advised to do this with the Registry cleared (or a new installation). jaclaz

My knowledge may be a bit outdated, but in my day we used to CLEAN the contacts, by rubbing them with a contact cleaner, instead of fiddling with connectors pushing and pulling them "some twenty or thirty times in rapid succession" You must be living in a very humid environment if you experienced USB contacts oxidation however. jaclaz

I just checked in my crystal ball and found everything about your photographic needs/preferences, if you could also post your date of birth, I may be more accurate, but what I saw is enough to say: However even with my crystal ball I wasn't able to find a reason WHY you may think that advise about buying a camera has ANYTHING to do with "Hard Drive and Removable Media issues" (which is the Forum where you posted your request). jaclaz

I guess nothing special, but since this: Windows Vista Service Pack 1 All Language Standalone DVD ISO http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=a45652b1-e838-420a-b065-83960458e2ec&displaylang=en is 1418 Mb and this: Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Five Language Standalone (KB936330) http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=b0c7136d-5ebb-413b-89c9-cb3d06d12674&displaylang=en is "only" 435 Mb I find only human that anyone using one of the five "elected languages" will use the latter. Now if anyone could explain in layman's terms while the Italian MS KB points to the download of this latter version, which includes NOT italian, that would be "special". jaclaz

jaclaz

For the record, 7-zip has read-only access to WIM files ONLY. On XP you can use (if you also have a Windows 7) this tool: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=9765 with this approach you need NOT the WAIK. jaclaz

Generally speaking, motherboards EITHER have USB 1.1 OR have 2.0 USB ports. BUT is a known fact that (and don't ask me WHY - I am just reporting what myself and a number of other people experienced) the ports on the back (the ones DIRECTLY soldered to the motherboard) usually perform MUCH better than "front" ones. It is probable that this is due to either the extension cable from the motherboard to the actual port or, maybe to a "different" USB controller used for the front ports, many may motherboards have problems booting off the front ports. The usual advice is to ALWAYS use a port in the back for "high speed" devices such as external hard disks. There are several tools to identify the bus/controller, a few are listed here: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=4661 Tools like SIV or SIW: http://rh-software.com/ http://www.gtopala.com/ will also do, but even using Device Manager should be enough for a base view of how the buses are connected. This: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.html may be useful to clear the Retgistry from obsolete entries. jaclaz

Your best bet is to inspect it with TESTDISK: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk Here is a sample thread about recovering an existing partition from an apparently UNpartitioned or bad MBR Table disk: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=141687 The screenshot you posted is missing part of the information, but I'm pretty sure it looks like the one in the given link. jaclaz

abnfire, you are OUTSIDE the scope of this thread. Your drive has probably had some intermittent failure - completely unrelated to the actuall "base" issue - that by pure chance appears like solved by forcing the same "reset" as the BSY fix. Now you have an "unbricked" drive with possibly corrupt partitions/data on it, and you don't even know how long it will last. You should start a NEW thread, asking for help about attempting recovering your data. The general ideas are detailed here (examples): http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=138816 http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=144232 http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=144418 http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=141687 http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=141448 http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=138162 http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=84345 jaclaz

Make your choice : AFAIK GHOST is a COMMERCIAL software that uses a PROPRIETARY format, so you will probably need to restore/reimage the images to use them with another app. jaclaz

Maybe it is a good idea to READ FIRST the read-me-first sticky in this very sub-forum: It is there EXACTLY to avoid this kind of problems and reports! Points #7 and #11 deal EXACTLY with the "problems" you reported. jaclaz

...and? Are you going to sue the Win-2K forum mods for hiding info to the MSFN members? jaclaz

Just in case: http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/File-Management/MD5-Check.shtml (one of the many) jaclaz

Actually even TALKING about them is frowned upon and can lead you to a ban: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/18408-forum-rules-updated-must-read/ But that shouldn't be a problem since you appear like having TWO accounts jtadeo51 jtadeo jaclaz