Damaged Logical Structure of Seagate 7200.11

[TomasMascinskas]

ok i been going crazy here, looked up lots of youtube videos, read up about the linux, ubuntu, gddrescue, i found my hdd in "applications" "disks", found out terminal, some coding there, i foudn the correct commands needed, and eventually i found that i dont have gddrescue, or ddrescue, and that i cannot install them, i tried various ways, running firefox and clicking on the links in https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DataRecovery, using the code: sudo apt-get install gddrescue, which didnt work, neither did ddrescue, however its not an internet connectivity as the update code worked in the terminal and so it did with install another app too, so i will try to find a usb bootable download with the gddrescue already installed, so far im hopeful, and once again thank you so much for everything

i found this: http://ubuntu-rescue-remix.org/node/119 but when i double click on it in ubuntu it says "the package is of bad quality", should i "ignore and install"?

ok now im getting somewhere, installed it, running the ddrescue command, it gets to 1179mb rescued, then 1 error, and after around 5 minutes, it says errsize 1499GB, which is very worrying, now its in the:

"Splitting error areas..." state, ill leave that overnight

FYI, the code im running is:

sudo ddrescue -r 3 /dev/sde /media/ubuntu/EMPTY /media/ubuntu/1C41-D695/log.txt

update, its been around 8 hours, and it seems the ipos: and opos:, went from position 0, all the way to the end 1500gb, and circulated many times now, and the rescued it still 1179,b, and errsize 1499gb, total errors is 1

also when i was in disks app in ubuntu the broken hdd came up with 669 bad sectors if that helps

but i find it hard to believe 1499GB is the error rate, since there are so many more sectors than 669, thats no where near 99% of the sectors, i didnt do nothing damaging to the hdd, it just randomly stopped working one day, i was trying to cut and paste files from the hdd but it just halted that one day, no physical damage, logical thats my fault, no viruses, so weird

update:

i interupted the process since there were was no progress for 8 hours with ctrl + c, back at the prompt, i attempted:

sudo ddrescue -n /dev/sde /media/ubuntu/EMPTY /media/ubuntu/1C41-D695/log.txt

sudo ddrescue -r 3 /dev/sde /media/ubuntu/EMPTY /media/ubuntu/1C41-D695/log.txt OLD COMMAND

so that the splitting is skipped (as that was the code given throughout the 8 hours

it finished already with the new code, being the rescued state at 1179mb and errsize at 1499gb

now im lost, i dont know what to do, so i will wait for your input

Edited February 13, 2014 by TomasMascinskas

[jaclaz]

now im lost, i dont know what to do, so i will wait for your input

Unfortunately I have none .

We have seemingly exhusted the things that can be done DIY.

Now there are three possibilities:

1. the hard disk is botched beyond any possible repair/recovery.
2. the hard disk may be repaired by professionals with hardware/software tools (like replacing SA's - whatever they are - fixing translation tables and what not)
3. the hard disk may be repaired by professionals with hardware intervention (like replacing heads, swapping platters, etc.

#1 above means end of game, #2 means probably US $ 300 to 500, #2 likely means US $800 to 1200.

jaclaz

[TomasMascinskas]

could you please explain to me why it would say 99% error, what are your guesses that it could be, im assuming maybe it just comes across a bad sector that it cant read and gets stuck on it rather than labelling it as bad and moving onto the next

also i think i thought of a few faults that couldve been mine, the hdd i was recovering to name had a space in it, and the log file was being written to a 100mb usb stick that filled up and ran out of space, so i renamed the spare functional hdd to simply "backup", which is 2tb, and i will write the log file to the backup hdd this time too (couldnt before due to that hdd having a space in the file name

but theres a problem now, for some reason the broken hdd wont appear using ubuntu terminal with sudo fdisk -l, and it wont appear in ubuntu, disks, app, but the hdd still is functioning correctly physically, initializes, spins, headers move, etc, and in windows, the usual, freezes in disk management

ok odd, tried a different port, now its recognised, even though i tried that sata port just a while ago

so im back in the terminal and gddrescue, trying the command again, but now its just 1 error, with the errsize being 1500GB, how on earth is that all an error, its definately not all bad no way, could you please explain to me what i need to do about this, i cannot find anything about this wherever im searching, i found, try reversing, try "--try-again", --no-split, its all 1500gb error size still

i would much rather learn how to fix hdd's myself, even if it means learning to rewrite table, i could even pay you to teach me if you are willing to

if not, could you answer the above question, and if all doesnt work out

could you recommend me a data recovery company in UNITED KINGDOM, LONDON, that is very professional, know what they are doing, i would know the location where my hdd is being kept at, and what is being done to it, because ive read up so many bad things about data recovery services, some just receive the drive, and bin it, and say that the drive is dead, some companies dont even exist, there PCWORLD and they have apparently "data recovery labs" but even they have terrible reviews, i am so lost, if i knew a professional and reliable company with real reviews, and legitamate professionals that actually do their job, a physical store which you can deliver your drive to, i would pay for the recovery

Edited February 25, 2014 by TomasMascinskas

[jaclaz]

i would much rather learn how to fix hdd's myself, even if it means learning to rewrite table, i could even pay you to teach me if you are willing to

Uh-oh, logical flaw detected .

You are assuming that I actually know how to fix a hdd in a situation like yours, which may or may not (it is not ) accurate.

Point is that to get to the "next" step one needs a little tool that sells for several thousands bucks (and that needs proper training), and to go to the "further" step one needs, beside the above some even more specific tools and quite a bit of experience.

And of course there are no guarantees of any kind that a recovery is possible at all, not even with these tools (and knowledge).

if not, could you answer the above question, and if all doesnt work out

could you recommend me a data recovery company in UNITED KINGDOM, LONDON, that is very professional, know what they are doing, i would know the location where my hdd is being kept at, and what is being done to it, because ive read up so many bad things about data recovery services, some just receive the drive, and bin it, and say that the drive is dead, some companies dont even exist, there PCWORLD and they have apparently "data recovery labs" but even they have terrible reviews, i am so lost, if i knew a professional and reliable company with real reviews, and legitamate professionals that actually do their job, a physical store which you can deliver your drive to, i would pay for the recovery

I cannot help you on this, you can try asking over at hddguru, that forum's members (besides a few casual passers by) are mainly professionals (usually with a very bad character, extremely unwilling to help and often disturbed by the questions of newbies, but that obviously know where their towel is) and you may make contact with one of them working in London. (and yes you are IMHO correct about the fact that there are seemingly a large number of buffoons that advertise on the internet for services they cannot provide reliably).

jaclaz

[TomasMascinskas]

i would much rather learn how to fix hdd's myself, even if it means learning to rewrite table, i could even pay you to teach me if you are willing to

Uh-oh, logical flaw detected .

You are assuming that I actually know how to fix a hdd in a situation like yours, which may or may not (it is not ) accurate.

Point is that to get to the "next" step one needs a little tool that sells for several thousands bucks (and that needs proper training), and to go to the "further" step one needs, beside the above some even more specific tools and quite a bit of experience.

And of course there are no guarantees of any kind that a recovery is possible at all, not even with these tools (and knowledge).

if not, could you answer the above question, and if all doesnt work out

could you recommend me a data recovery company in UNITED KINGDOM, LONDON, that is very professional, know what they are doing, i would know the location where my hdd is being kept at, and what is being done to it, because ive read up so many bad things about data recovery services, some just receive the drive, and bin it, and say that the drive is dead, some companies dont even exist, there PCWORLD and they have apparently "data recovery labs" but even they have terrible reviews, i am so lost, if i knew a professional and reliable company with real reviews, and legitamate professionals that actually do their job, a physical store which you can deliver your drive to, i would pay for the recovery

I cannot help you on this, you can try asking over at hddguru, that forum's members (besides a few casual passers by) are mainly professionals (usually with a very bad character, extremely unwilling to help and often disturbed by the questions of newbies, but that obviously know where their towel is) and you may make contact with one of them working in London. (and yes you are IMHO correct about the fact that there are seemingly a large number of buffoons that advertise on the internet for services they cannot provide reliably).

jaclaz

awright thanks again, so back to gddrescue, do you have any idea why its stating that there is only 1 error and that error is 1500gb large?

[TomasMascinskas]

Hey everyone, thought id mention that i finally went through with the data recovery with PCImage, i actually went in person from london to peterborough to physically hand delivery the dead hdd and a fresh new hdd to the shop, took ages to get there but when i did everything was simple and easy, simply handed in the drive, they already knew of me coz of the email communications, had an overall summary of the problems of the hdd and the process of the recovery.

 

the turn around recovery was incredible...next day they identified the problem, i confirmed with the fix, and day after it was all recovered on my spare hdd, instead of picking it up in person they first cloned the hdd to a backup, and put another clone on my new fresh hdd and sent it back to me (this way if the package was lost they still had a clone, which i couldnt do as i didnt know how to fix the problem myself)

 

Here were the problems found:

 

1.       Media degradation (bad sectors), possibly caused by the contamination, but also possibly the initial underlying issue in the first place.

 

2.       Firmware module corruption, in particular the translator. Almost certainly caused by improper use of an “internet fix” which does not take into account entries in the NRG

 

3.       Quite possibly some file system damage, the extent of which is unknown as of yet.

 

 

 

 

So for anyone on this forum wondering...go ahead with PCImage, thumbs up from me