Seagate (FreeAgent Go) Momentus 5400.6 - Solution?

[fackeid]

Hi

I have few USB Portable Disks from Seagate ("Freeagent Go") which are not getting detected in the Windows.

So I opened the portable device and took out the seagate hard disk from it.

Details of the Disk are ->

Seagate Momentus 5400.6

Firmware 0002BSM1

Model ST9500325AS

Interface = SATA

Now I tried to connect the disk direct to the PC. But BIOS is not detecting the disk. So I did following activities

1) Connect RX TX pins to RS232 connectors

2) Executed Following terminal commands (just for check), But i got stuck with Init SMART FAIL error.

ASCII Diag mode

F3 T>/2

F3 2>Z

Spin Down Complete

Elapsed Time 6.015 secs

F3 2>

ASCII Diag mode

F3 T>/2

F3 2>U

HighPowerMode

ExecuteSpinRequest

Spin Up Complete

Elapsed Time 3.624 secs

F3 2>/1

F3 1>N1

Init SMART Fail

3. Now I tried again with direct following Terminal commands

F3 T>m0,2,2,0,0,0,0,22

This time command was successfully executed , with no error.

4. Now I connected this hard drive to the machine, and now this Hard disk is getting Detected in the BIOS.

5. But when i start the Windows - It automatically start the "scandisk" operation on the newly detected Partition (I am now desperately waiting to finish this scandisk operation, so that i can get my data back... but)

6. Scandisk Operations - shows me continues Unreadable Sectors , so i restarted the systems and on the next scandisk interaction with the this hard drive was skipped, so that i will be able to diagnose the disk with some other tools like HDD Regenerator

7. HDD Regenerator shows me NON-REPAIRABLE bad sectors.

8. I tried the same thing with one more same momentus drive (everything same as specified above)- but to my surprise I now found Repairable Bad Sectors but the count was tooooooo high. In 48hours HDD Regenerator have fixed only 9GB out of 500GB disk. So I dont have any other chance to Stop this activity as well.

Now I tried to explain the problem in as maximum details as i can provide.

So please help me out to fix this drives.

I do have few more momentus drives in my friend circle, and all are having hopes associated me.

Please do help me out.

[jaclaz]

It is very strange that scandisk starts by itself.

Maybe the NTFS filesystem was left with the "dirty" bit set.

You should NOT run scandisk on that system, until you find out what has happened.

You should NOT run HDD Regenerator.

What happens in Disk Manager?

How is the partition(s) seen?

You NEED another media big enough to image that disk drive and later work on the image. (in your case a suitable media is a a 640 Gb disk)

The general idea with a drive that has had problems is to get the DATA out of it as soon and with as little fiddling with the device as possible.

Take your time to read and learn basic usage of TESTDISK and try running it on the image AND NOT on the original drive:

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

Image the drive using any "dd like" Windows or linux utility, a list is here:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=100299

In your particular case, since we have NO idea of the health status of the drive, using one of the apps mentioned here:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=144418

is recommended.

(do it in chunks, if you have problems).

Mind you: data recovery is about recovering data , NOT about doing things quickly or fast, it will take time and patience to image the drive, and time and patience to (hopefully) retrieve the data from the image.

jaclaz

[fackeid]

Hi Thanks for quick response

I am adding few screen prints which shows the Disk Management Status & HDD Status Via Crystal Disk.

(One interesting thing I observed While ScanDisk was started at first time... I can see the Volume Label.. but in Disk Manager I cant see it.. But TestDisk shows volume Label..)

I tried to work with DataRescue DD with I am getting errors.

Please do guide me further...

(I will work with other sample drives in the mean while.)

[jaclaz]

(I will work with other sample drives in the mean while.)

fackeid,

you seem like thinking you are in a production environment of some kind and in a frenzy to do something, STOP fidlling with the other drives until you have success with the two you ALREADY messed with!

For all we know, the procedure you attempted, UNDOCUMENTED and UNbacked up by ANY supporting theory might be killing those disks for good.

I'll try again.

The set of commands you applied are documented to be a way to "reset" the board of 7200.11 drives (and NOT any other model) affected by a problem derived by a mis-setting in the firmware that results with two specific symptoms, the BSY and the LBA0 (and NOT any other problem).

More generally, it is a sort of "general reset" of the disk logs.

Resetting these logs is a proved effective way to solve the TWO mentioned symptoms. (and NOTHING else)

It is well possible that the same procedure is useful in reviving a disk that suffers from other problems, but we DO NOT know which problem your hard disk had before and we don't know if this unknown problem can be solved by this procedure.

It is as well possible that this procedure while APPARENTLY reviving the disk, puts it in a condition where nothing else can be done (in other words instead of having a theoretically functional HDD not detectable by BIOS - i.e. bricked - you get a hard disk that is detectable by BIOS but that is NOT functional anymore because some data - calibration, alignment, whatever is LOST forever).

So, there is no point in applying this procedure blindly to ALL specimens you have in your hand, you are experimenting, and you should do it bit by bit.

I tried to work with DataRescue DD with I am getting errors.

WHAT commands/addresses did you use?

WHICH errors?

Try with a small chunk of sectors, first.

Report exactly the error you have.

Consider the VALUE of the DATA that is on the disk(s).

It is probable that you are going to NOT recover ANY data during these experiments, have you considered this possibility?

We don't have till now ANY evidence that the drive is functional again.

Have you checked it with a tool like Victoria, MHDD or ?

http://hddguru.com/software/2005.10.03-Victoria/

http://hddguru.com/software/2005.10.02-MHDD/

http://hddguru.com/software/2006.01.22-HDDScan/

http://www.benchmarkhq.ru/english.html?/be_hdd.html

jaclaz

[fackeid]

Hi jaclaz

Extremely sorry for delayed response.

Now here it goes..

fackeid,

you seem like thinking you are in a production environment of some kind and in a frenzy to do something, STOP fidlling with the other drives until you have success with the two you ALREADY messed with!

I would like to say I am just having good friends who trust me :-)

I have tried the HDDScan tool also.. Please find the following attached results

Also I am attaching DDRescue errors screen print as requested by you.

(Please note -I am worked only on selected area with DDRescue.. it is reflected in screen print)

HDD Scan.rar

Edited August 10, 2010 by fackeid

[jaclaz]

What does Victoria show?

http://www.benchmarkhq.ru/english.html?/be_hdd.html

From the looks of what you posted it seems like you've managed to kill the disk allright.

Most probably it is still recoverable, but you will need software and hardware that is outside the reach of a hobbyist.

I am talking of products like PC-3000 or HD Doctor, thingies going in the range of a few thousands US$.

jaclaz

[ARM]

I also have a ST9500325AS SATA laptop drive and FW = 0001SDM1. Suddenly the disk comes up as LBA 0 and will not load.

Tried the above terminal commands and the disk has come back to life.

The problem is after a scan of the disk, 58838897 sectors readable, the rest of the disk sectors are all UNreadable ??

Any help appreciated, I think there must be additional terminal commands needed, HELP ??

[arun22verma]

sir i have use seagate momentus 5400.6 320gb hdd this drive is show in device manger/ & show in disk managment but not online(disk2 unknown 298.09gb not initialized) pls tell me

[jaclaz]

sir i have use seagate momentus 5400.6 320gb hdd this drive is show in device manger/ & show in disk managment but not online(disk2 unknown 298.09gb not initialized) pls tell me

"not initialized" (I presume from disk management of XP/2003/Vista or 7, etc.) simply means that the MBR has NOT at offset 510 the "magic bytes" 55AA.

This could be due to several reasons and may either be easy fixable or unrecoverable.

Please describe with as much detail as you can:

• the OS you are running.
  
• which hardware PC model/etc.
  
• if you have available another disk, possibly in a USB or e-sata enclosure of the same size or bigger
  
• what happened (what could have caused the issue, your actions, when it happened, etc.)
  
• what was BEFORE on that disk (number of partitions, filesystems used, etc.)
  

jaclaz