[saman0suke]

Good day, I found this forum searching for a solution, I'm already losing any hope, so, I will do my last effort I have a Maxtor STM3500320AS DiamondMax 22 SATA 500 GB, which suddenly stopped working, I was not able to see it on Windows Ultimate x64, so I entered into Ubuntu x64 and gParted advised me to run CHKDSK on the disk since it had problems, I tried to do it with the Windows Installation disc, but it didn't work, because It did not see the disk.

I checked BIOS and I can see the hard drive, I put the hard drive on an enclosure and logged in on Windows, and I was able to see my two partitions (1 about 100 GB and the other 400 GB aprox) but when I tried to enter it said "Do you want to format this drive?" so I canceled it, I tried to use severalrecovery data applications with no success, most of them just get frozen when the scan starts, and launches a lots of error of the type I/O error.

If I try to go to Windows Management Disks, I can see the hard drive as Not initialized, when I try to "mount" it, it says that I cannot do the operation due to an I/O error.

Checking on the Seagate forum, I noticed that an importante firmware update was available for my hard drive (I was on MX15) and I installed it on the drive, with no problems at all, but now, everytime I want to boot up the computer with the hard drive connected to the motherboard, the computer stays "loading" at the INTEL screen and never goes forward, I have to disconnect the drive, boot up any OS and then connect the drive, using an enclosure, or connecting the sata cable after the OS is loaded.

I still have some hopes to recover something, I just care about maybe 20 GB of the small partition, if you have any idea, I would like to give it a try because right now i'm out of them, I checked about a BSY LBA0 error, something that happens with this hard drives, but I don't know if I have this problem, please guide me, at this point, I'm ready to try any method to save some data from it, I'm pretty sure the data is fine, thanks in advanced, have a nice day!! I attached an image of the actual Hard drive info, if works for someone.

EDIT: I was thinking on getting an exact hard drive to replace the Logic board, could this be a possible solution? thanks!

ESPAÑOL:
Para hacerlo un poco resumido, tengo un disco duro Maxtor DiamondMax 22 STM3500320AS 500 GB SATA, de repente dejo de funcionar, no lo veia en Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bits, fui a Ubuntu x64 y gParted me recomendo hacer un CHKDSK el cual no pude realizar ya que al insertar el disco de Windows no me reconocia el disco duro, he tratado de utilizar muchos programas de recuperacion de datos o sectores dañados y la mayoria terminan congelandose y lanzando errores de tipo I/O (entrada/salida).

Si voy a la admin de discos en Windows, puedo ver el disco duro pero esta como "No inicializado" y si trato de montarlo me dice que ha habido un error de I/O, a este punto la unica de ver el disco es colocandolo en un enclosure, y puedo ver las dos particiones que posee, pero me pide que los formatee antes de entrar puedo ver el disco duro en la BIOS sin problemas; revisando los foros de SEAGATE me doy cuenta que hay una actualizacion de firmware para este modelo, la aplique, pensando en una solucion y ahora, cada vez que quiero iniciar la pc con el disco duro conectado a la motherboard, este se queda cargando en la pantalla de INTEL y no pasa de ahi, tengo que iniciar sin el disco duro conectada, y cuando el SO este cargado completamente conectar el disco duro, estoy seguro que aun puedo recuperar alguna informacion.

He pensado en obtener un disco duro identico y cambiar la placa logica, pero no se si funcionaria, o realizar el procedimiento para resolver errores de tipo LBA0 o BSY, cualquier ayuda es bienvenida, gracias

Attached File(s)

•  2011-08-15_07-10-52_624.jpg (38.64K)
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This post has been edited by saman0suke: 24 August 2011 - 03:43 PM

[jaclaz]

saman0suke, on 24 August 2011 - 03:30 PM, said:

Checking on the Seagate forum, I noticed that an importante firmware update was available for my hard drive (I was on MX15) and I installed it on the drive, with no problems at all, but now, everytime I want to boot up the computer with the hard drive connected to the motherboard, the computer stays "loading" at the INTEL screen and never goes forward, I have to disconnect the drive, boot up any OS and then connect the drive, using an enclosure, or connecting the sata cable after the OS is loaded.

HMMM, this must be the most foolish thing one can do: attempt a firmware replacement on defective hardware! (without asking for help before)

saman0suke, on 24 August 2011 - 03:30 PM, said:

I still have some hopes to recover something, I just care about maybe 20 GB of the small partition, if you have any idea, I would like to give it a try because right now i'm out of them, I checked about a BSY LBA0 error, something that happens with this hard drives, but I don't know if I have this problem, please guide me, at this point, I'm ready to try any method to save some data from it, I'm pretty sure the data is fine, thanks in advanced, have a nice day!! I attached an image of the actual Hard drive info, if works for someone.

NOW, you are ready?
After having ALREADY put the drive in an unknown state by applying the firmware update?

saman0suke, on 24 August 2011 - 03:30 PM, said:

EDIT: I was thinking on getting an exact hard drive to replace the Logic board, could this be a possible solution? thanks!

I was wrong , THIS is the most foolish thing, the good news are that you asked before attempting to do that.

DO NOT EVEN THINK of doing this!

Let's restart from the beginning, OK?

Your DiamondMax 22 SATA 500 GB is - to all practical effects - a Seagate 7200.11, thus it can suffer as well from the same BSY or LBA0 problem, as well by a number of OTHER, UNRELATED problems.

Now you should take some time reading the STICKIES:
http://www.msfn.org/...pcbs-on-720011/
http://www.msfn.org/...-read-me-first/
http://www.msfn.org/...-720011-drives/

AFTER you have digested the info in them (please do take your time), read also this:
http://www.msfn.org/...-to-busy-state/
(please do not tell us how you cannot see the images, we know that, they are lost forever, the only meaningful one, last one, shows that the drive has a BUSY green button lighted up, and the image on
http://www.msfn.org/...te/page__st__10
can be used as reference instead)

I think we have NO way (anymore) to understand whether your drive is in LBA0 state, since this is done at boot, but maybe you can try it as well, what happens if you go into BIOS as soon as the PC boots?
If the BIOS "sees" the drive BUT sees it as having 0 capacity, THEN in it is in LBA0 state.

Let's first see if any of the two known problems exists (though I doubt it, since you somehow can "see" the disk).

The attempts you made with recovery programs should hopefully NOT have caused any further damage.
In ANY case, to attempt ANY recovery procedure you need another new, or DEFINITELY working Hard Disk size bigger than your "botched" 500 Gb (a 640 Gb would be perfect), ideally you should have TWO such devices, one to work on and one to restore the hopefully recovered data, but even one and some spare space on some other disk may do.

Please do understand that I have not any interest in suggesting you to buy/procure such a new drive, I am telling you this because ANY serious attempt at recovery goes through a forensic sound or dd-like image of the disk.

ANYTHING else, any program, any how to, any video on YouTube, any friend telling you, ANYTHING else suggesting to operate directly on the botched hard disk won't be supported, as it is likely to create more damages and worse than that may make the data (if recoverable) definitely UNrecoverable.

jaclaz

This post has been edited by jaclaz: 25 August 2011 - 06:42 AM

[saman0suke]

I know updating the firmware was not the smartest idea, I made a mistake by listening someone I shouldn't, at least before I was able to boot up computer with the HD connected to the motherboard, now I can't and it always get frozen rigth at the INTEL screen, that's why so far I cannot enter into BIOS, I guess it's fully dead right? I will try again, but any idea would be helpful. By the way, some of the comments were innapropiate in my opinion, I'm not an expert on hardware, that's why I'm asking for help. Thank you.

[jaclaz]

So, the BIOS is not an option, see what happens running Victoria on the HD connected after boot.

Besides this, can Disk Management see the disk (possibly as "RAW")?

jaclaz

[saman0suke]

jaclaz, on 27 August 2011 - 02:28 AM, said:

So, the BIOS is not an option, see what happens running Victoria on the HD connected after boot.

Besides this, can Disk Management see the disk (possibly as "RAW")?

jaclaz

I tried connecting the hard drive to another computer I have at home (running a different INTEL motherboard model, Windows 7 Ultimate 32 bits) and the computer did not get stuck, I entered into BIOS and it still recognize the disk as STM3500320AS, then I boot up the OS, and I was able to see both partitions, but, when I tried to access to them I received the message "Do you want to format?", so, at least I can boot up the computer with the hard drive connected; where can I get Victoria? is there an official website? thanks!

This post has been edited by saman0suke: 29 August 2011 - 08:24 AM

[jaclaz]

saman0suke, on 29 August 2011 - 08:23 AM, said:

I tried connecting the hard drive to another computer I have at home (running a different INTEL motherboard model, Windows 7 Ultimate 32 bits) and the computer did not get stuck, I entered into BIOS and it still recognize the disk as STM3500320AS, then I boot up the OS, and I was able to see both partitions, but, when I tried to access to them I received the message "Do you want to format?", so, at least I can boot up the computer with the hard drive connected; where can I get Victoria? is there an official website? thanks!

If you can see the partitions, your drive DOES NOT suffer from either of LBA0 or BSY and you do not consequently need Victoria to check for BSY state.

You are affected by an "easier" kind of problem (partition data corruption) which needs a different set of tools/approach. (mind you the fact that the problem is "easier" does not mean that it can *always* be solved or that it can be solved *easily* or solved at 100%).

Now, the "right path" is:

• image the drive (you will need for this a larger one, surely working and teested, ideal it would be a 640 Gb one)
  
• the "standard procedure" is to image the failed drive TWICE, but I do understand that there may be cost problems involved in having two such hard disks, but at least one image is IMNSHO the bare minimum.
  
• 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 probelms in imaging in one single go):
  http://reboot.pro/15040/page__st__8
  
• once we have an image, we can start working on it
  
• the general idea is to first thing try and recover (if possible) the partitions (and restore them to functional filesystems)
  
• if the above does not work, we will try a file based recovery approach (the type and amount of UNreplaceable data that was on the disk will come into play should this approach be needed)
  
• the general idea of recovering a partition can be get by reading this thread here:
  http://www.msfn.org/...-after-bsy-fix/

Mind you we can attempt the recovery even on the actual currently "botched" disk, but it is NOT recommended as there are possibilities that the result will be a further complexity (or impossibility ) of recovering the data.

There should be no problems in running the tools on a 32 bit Windows 7, but you will probably need UAC turned off
Having an XP (32 bit) machine would be better, if available.

jaclaz

This post has been edited by jaclaz: 31 August 2011 - 04:48 AM

[saman0suke]

I just want to let you know some things before: I was trying to come up with some solutions for this, at Seagate forums I was advised to try putting the hard drive into a freezer for about 2 days and then trying to connect it to the computer, in order to make some internal parts being frozen and placed into the correct positions, what would give me at least 30 mins to get some data from it......IT DID NOT WORK, I'm afraid that after trying this method the hard drive became more damaged and my chances to get some data would be minor, do you think there's still a chance after doing some unusual methods like this? If so, I'm wiling to buy a larger size hard drive to give it a try, since I don't have any right now, just same size.

I'll see if I can install another partition with Windows XP on my home computer, something else I should tell you, on the second computer that boots up normally, it just takes a long time between the windows loading screen and the login screen to come up, but it let me log in and initiate session, just taking longer than usual when the hard drive is connected. Something else, yesterday I was connecting the hd and see what I was able to do, I did shake it a lil' bit, and you can hear like something is loose, but just a lil bit, not like moving all over the hard drive :/

Thanks in advanced for all the help, I'll be waiting for your advices about this post, and will get another hard drive if needed.

This post has been edited by saman0suke: 30 August 2011 - 08:53 AM

[allen2]

If you don't care about the data stored on the faulty hard drive, just replace it (using the warranty or not). The freezer thing should not be done unless you don't care anymore, that one of the last thing to try and usually doesn't give any result (tried twice, only worked with an old 1GB drive and did not work on a recent drive).
Even if Jaclaz with its "magic" get it working, i would not put any data there after.
So you'll need to buy a new hard drive or get this one replaced (under warranty if available and forget about the data stored there).
Also when bios still detect the drive, never try anything other than software tools to recover data. Anything else would most likely damage the drive.

[jaclaz]

saman0suke, on 30 August 2011 - 08:45 AM, said:

I just want to let you know some things before: I was trying to come up with some solutions for this, at Seagate forums I was advised to try putting the hard drive into a freezer for about 2 days and then trying to connect it to the computer, in order to make some internal parts being frozen and placed into the correct positions, what would give me at least 30 mins to get some data from it......IT DID NOT WORK, I'm afraid that after trying this method the hard drive became more damaged and my chances to get some data would be minor, do you think there's still a chance after doing some unusual methods like this? If so, I'm wiling to buy a larger size hard drive to give it a try, since I don't have any right now, just same size.

I'll see if I can install another partition with Windows XP on my home computer, something else I should tell you, on the second computer that boots up normally, it just takes a long time between the windows loading screen and the login screen to come up, but it let me log in and initiate session, just taking longer than usual when the hard drive is connected. Something else, yesterday I was connecting the hd and see what I was able to do, I did shake it a lil' bit, and you can hear like something is loose, but just a lil bit, not like moving all over the hard drive :/

Thanks in advanced for all the help, I'll be waiting for your advices about this post, and will get another hard drive if needed.

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 there is a "botched" hard drive a NT system (that actually by default tries automatically to access/mount it) will be always slower/more sluggish when loading. This is also "normal".

Together with the freezer trick there are various version of the other myth (that again as always happens does have some true basis) more generically (i.e. not necessarily related to hard disks) it goes under the name of "percussive maintenance":
http://en.wikipedia....ive_maintenance
http://www.urbandict...e%20Maintenance

I have not a Maxtor or Seagate drive of a similar type handy, and even if I had it I won't "shake" it to see if it does have something loose inside, but it is very possible that the head moves when the disk drive is shaken in a given direction, but please STOP shaking that poor disk anyway.

If you have an exactly the same size disk (500 Gb tend to have the same exact size):
http://www.forensicf...iewtopic&t=7552
you may want to try a "direct" (disk-to-disk) dd-like image, but cannot say which kind of issues may arise if you actually find a "really bad" bunch of "bad sectors"
if this is the case a recommended app is this one:
http://alter.org.ua/...win/bb_recover/
(still cannot say about it's functionality under 7)
but since you probably can use a 640 Gb disk anyway and I presume that you value your (currently lost) data more that the difference between the cost of a brand new 640 Gb and the money you can get by selling it as used if it comes out as a non-feasible recovery, it's a bet that if I were you I would take.

@allen2
Just for the record jaclaz does not use any particular "magic" , only a set of tools used in a proper manner. along the lines of proper procedures

The nearest thing to "magic" that jaclaz happens to touch is his crystal ball, the one that is perennial foggy or out of tune and that he uses when torture fails to get proper info from people.

jaclaz

[saman0suke]

Well, after what you said, I will give it a try and get another hard drive, in the worst case, I will ended up with two broken hard drives, and the data is actually important so I don't care about spending on the second hard drive, I will try to get it this week and will continue with your steps, thanks a lot jaclaz

[jaclaz]

saman0suke, on 30 August 2011 - 11:45 AM, said:

Well, after what you said, I will give it a try and get another hard drive, in the worst case, I will ended up with two broken hard drives, and the data is actually important so I don't care about spending on the second hard drive, I will try to get it this week and will continue with your steps, thanks a lot jaclaz

Naah, unless you freeze it, or shake it too much there is no chance that the "new" hard drive will ever be damaged in the procedures.

The worst case is that your currently inaccessible hard disk will remain inaccessible, or if you prefer not any real worse situation than the one you are currenlty in, only you will have spent a few bucks for the "new" drive and actually "have" a "new" drive, entropy should not be much increased by this.

jaclaz

[saman0suke]

I just find 1 TB hard drives, it does not matter since I'm not going to try an exact image backup right? I mean, I think it's even better to have more space, thanks!!!

[Kelsenellenelvian]

Cloning a drive needs to have the same size drive for the BETTER chance of it working.

I have read and seen dozens of people that try to clone to different sizes and failure is extremly likely.

[jaclaz]

saman0suke, on 30 August 2011 - 10:58 PM, said:

I just find 1 TB hard drives, it does not matter since I'm not going to try an exact image backup right? I mean, I think it's even better to have more space, thanks!!!

Sure it's fine.

Kelsenellenelvian, on 30 August 2011 - 11:02 PM, said:

Cloning a drive needs to have the same size drive for the BETTER chance of it working.

BUT the scope of the exercise is NOT to clone a disk, it is to IMAGE it.
So we need more space than source to allow for the "host" filesystem (which will necessarily be NTFS) structures (and have some slack space to concatenate partial image chunks if such an approach is needed).
Since NTFS normally dedicates 12.5% space for it's structures:
http://www.ntfs.com/...ptimization.htm
500x1.125=562.5 represents the bare minimum, and 640 Gb is the next near "common size", allowing to manage one excess 50 Gb chunk, like in 562.5+50=612.5<640 (but normally on a modern system one has at least a couple of such 50 Gb "slots" free on some other disk, so we have enough space to manage "issues", should that arise)
A 750 GB is "better" and a 1 Tb is even better for imaging a 500 Gb.

Kelsenellenelvian, on 30 August 2011 - 11:02 PM, said:

I have read and seen dozens of people that try to clone to different sizes and failure is extremly likely.

Just for your interest, as long as there is not a geometry conflict (quite rare if not impossible today, as *all* disks use a 255/63 geometry) it is a perrfectly normal and possible to clone a disk to a bigger one, what you read was probably the atttempts of 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.
There *may* be issues when using one of those "newish" 4 Kb sector HD's, but I have not yet needed to do a "clone to bigger" on one of those.

jaclaz

This post has been edited by jaclaz: 31 August 2011 - 03:12 AM

[Kelsenellenelvian]

OK thanks for clearing it up!

[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

This post has been edited by saman0suke: 31 August 2011 - 12:15 PM

[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!

This post has been edited by saman0suke: 07 September 2011 - 01:16 PM

[saman0suke]

Any recommendation? thanks!

[jaclaz]

saman0suke, on 15 September 2011 - 10:09 AM, said:

Any recommendation? thanks!

You were given some.
You seemingly did NOT follow them:

jaclaz, on 29 August 2011 - 11:08 AM, said:

• 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

This post has been edited by jaclaz: 15 September 2011 - 01:19 PM

[saman0suke]

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