I can't access to my Maxtor STM3500320AS, please help!

[saman0suke]

Ok then, I will get it as soon as I can, now that my job vacations are coming, would be a nice exercise, I still hate that I updated the hard drive's firmware and tried the "freezer" trick, I just hope I still can do something, thanks! bad thing: 1 TB hard drive is SEAGATE (MAXTOR) as well don't trust them anymore hahaha

Edited August 31, 2011 by saman0suke

[saman0suke]

I just got the hard drive, I will install windows xp on a 60 GB hard drive that I have and then will try to get an image from the disc, I will let you known, thanks!!

EDIT: I'm running DataRescue DD on the same computer I was trying before, I only installed Windows XP 32 bits on another hard drive, and I have also the 1 TB HD connected to make the image, first problem: when I connect the damaged hard drive, the computer never advances from the INTEL screen, like trying to load something, so I had to dettach the damaged one and put it on an enclosure to connect when the OS is already loaded, I can see both partition , but I cannot access to any of them, when I start the scan I receives lots of error message::

Any help? At this point, the scan is still running, thanks!

Edited September 7, 2011 by saman0suke

[saman0suke]

Any recommendation? thanks!

[jaclaz]

Any recommendation? thanks!

You were given some.

You seemingly did NOT follow them:

• to image the drive, since we don't know it's "hardware state" I would suggest you to use DatarescueDD:
  http://reboot.pro/7783/
  
• using the procedure outlined here (if there are problems in imaging in one single go):
  http://reboot.pro/15040/page__st__8
  

Here is a nice representation of your HD heads banging against a large chunk of bad sectors:

jaclaz

Edited September 15, 2011 by jaclaz

[saman0suke]

I still need to try doing it in parts then, but, why so many errors? is there a possibility to recover something? thanks!

[jaclaz]

I still need to try doing it in parts then, but, why so many errors?

Because that poor disk drive developed a defect and later torture was used on it?

is there a possibility to recover something? thanks!

Who knows?

The idea is to try and see.

Remember that "something" is NOT "everything", and that when attempting recovering data form a failed drive sometimes you win and sometimes you loose.

jaclaz

[saman0suke]

Ok then, I will keep trying as soon as possible, since I'm busy with work right now :/ I will post my results, once again, thanks for all the help!

[Ponch]

dozens of people that had no idea WHAT they were doing or were adviced by the same peeps that suggested saman0suke updating the firmware or putting the disk in the freezer.

Fyi, as reported by othe people and myself, the freezer trick does work. The fact it works in some cases only doesn't mean its just voodoo tales from people that have no idea what they are doing. Anyone knowing about electronics knows that a cooled component does behave differently from a hot component. If you lower the start temperature of the board enough (I agree people who tell you "it needs two days" have no idea what they are doing), you can in certain cases get a failing drive to work a few minutes longer. What I had is a drive failing after 30 seconds, thus totally unusable, these were my specific symptoms, the drive would not even be recognized by Bios at a 2nd consecutive boot. Then after an hour in the freezer, it failed after about 5 minutes, just enough for me to pick up some files I needed. This is not a fairy tale I invented so I'd look ... cool B) . Key words here are "in some cases".

[jaclaz]

Fyi, as reported by othe people and myself, the freezer trick does work.

Sure it does, re-read please:

Well, the freezer trick (if done properly) should NOT make things worse (or MUCH worse ).

It simply WON'T do ANYTHING.

It is mostly a myth, though it can work in a very limited amount of cases, it is NOT something that you should normally even THINK to do.

But it is pretty much harmless.

If you have a deep cut, cleaning it and disinfecting it with appropriate disinfectants has proved to help greatly, nearly 100%, in preventing infections.

If you have a deep cut, and you have nothing appropriate, covering it with mud has proved to help preventing infections in a limited number of cases.

If you have a broken leg with no external bruises or cuts, disinfecting it won't do anything to help heal the fracture.

The freezer trick CAN be a cure for a few "illnesses", but it is not, like it is widely promoted on the internet, "the" cure for EACH AND ANY problem your hard disk drive may have.

Symptoms that may be (if not cured) reduced temporarily by the "freezer trick" are typically:

• drive "disappearing" after a few seconds/minutes from power up/spin up
  
• drive clicking/clanking
  
• one or more than one of the chips on the PCB anormally heating up
  
• cracked solder joints (for this it is better to check and re-solder/heat up the joint)
  
• stuck bearing (freezing VERY rarely can be useful for this)
  

jaclaz

Edited September 28, 2011 by jaclaz

[saman0suke]

Haven't had any time to keep the hd running with the software :/ too much work, I will try to do it this week and post the results, thanks!

[saman0suke]

Hello again, I couldn't do anything before regarding the disk, but a friend of mine helped me to scan the damaged hard drive with DD ( which is DataRescue_DD I'm assuming) and got an .IMG image, which is about 60 GB (the hard drive is 500 GB with two partitions, one of 400 GB and the other 100 GB, I just need the 100 GB, so he got 60 out of 100 GB), now, I can mount this image with Daemon Tools for example and see what I can recover? or what would be the next step? thanks!!

[jaclaz]

Hello again, I couldn't do anything before regarding the disk, but a friend of mine helped me to scan the damaged hard drive with DD ( which is DataRescue_DD I'm assuming) and got an .IMG image, which is about 60 GB (the hard drive is 500 GB with two partitions, one of 400 GB and the other 100 GB, I just need the 100 GB, so he got 60 out of 100 GB), now, I can mount this image with Daemon Tools for example and see what I can recover? or what would be the next step? thanks!!

It is more likely that it is the "real" dd (originally for Linux) or maybe dd_rescue or ddrescue (two very confusingly named forks of dd aimed to data recovery still for Linux).

There is no way to suggest you an app without knowing something more about what was recovered.

If it was just the beginning of second partition, i.e. it's first sector is a bootsector, the best tool you can use to attempt mounting it is IMDISK (under windows), but it is possible that some data needs to be corrected, I would rather create a dummy MBR and mount it in TESTDISK.

If you post first few - say 100 or 200 - sectors of the image you have I can have a look at them and ossibly give you some more targeted advice.

A suitable tool (under Windows) is dsfo, part of the DSFOK toolkit, :

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~nulifetv/freezip/freeware/

Unzip everything in a directory, say C:\dsfok\

Open a command prompt, navigate to it, then issue command:

dsfo C:\whatever\yourimage.img 0 102400 myfirst200.bin

you will get in the directory file myfirst200.bin with size 102,400 bytes that represent first 200 sectors of your image, then compress the .bin in a .zip archive and either attache it to your next post r upload it somewhere an post a link to it.

jaclaz

[saman0suke]

Nice to see you around, and thanks for all the help as usual I will get the image from this guy today, and will do what you're asking me to, actually he used the "original" dd, that's correct, by the way, I was reading some articles about using some tools like Foremost, Scalpel, MagicRescue on the .img file, what do you think about these tools? I will work on a copy of the image of course, I wouldn't like to ruin the image as well :S thanks!!

[jaclaz]

Nice to see you around, and thanks for all the help as usual I will get the image from this guy today, and will do what you're asking me to, actually he used the "original" dd, that's correct, by the way, I was reading some articles about using some tools like Foremost, Scalpel, MagicRescue on the .img file, what do you think about these tools? I will work on a copy of the image of course, I wouldn't like to ruin the image as well :S thanks!!

Well, there is some "canonical" order in data recovery, which basically is:

Aim for the stars and maybe you'll reach the sky

(and be prepared to go no higher than 1 foot)

So you try to recover:

1. whole disks
   
2. if above not possible, whole partition/filesystem(s)
   
3. if above not possible, whole file(s)
   
4. if above not possible, fragment(s) of file(s)
   
5. if above not possible, you have (yet another) doorstop
   

exactly in this order .

jaclaz

[saman0suke]

I'm currently on step 2, since trying to get a 500 GB image from an almost dead hard drive will take many days, if it's possible, besides I'm interested only on the 100 GB partition :S, I have the image with me, I will work with it when I get home, thanks!