HDD repair tools?

[Shyatic]

So I have an interesting issue, and I do backups to the cloud so not the end of the world but... I have a traditional 2TB 7200RPM drive (Samsung I think) that worked pretty well up until today.

I added a new drive and was going to copy all the data off (3TB), and did a drive letter change. Ever since then the drive is unresponsive and I can't access disk management in Windows to check anything. It just sits there and hangs.

Are there any utilities to remedy the drive either on a USB, or how to get it to work within Windows? Appreciate any help you folks can provide!

 

[Coup27]

Check if the drive appears in BIOS. If it doesn't, it's toast.

If it does, you can use something like Seatools by Seagate to run a full diagnostic on the drive which you tell you whether it's still working properly.

 

[Shyatic]

It appears in the BIOS... Downloading the tools now. Thanks!

 

[Coup27]

I use the DOS version but the Windows version should be fine. Be aware a full scan on a 2TB drive is going to take a few hours.

 

[blankslate]

If you might want to try a 3rd party program for an especially janky HDD Spinrite might work for you. You make a CD then boot from the CD to dos to run Spinrite.

Be sure to install the drive in question in a with a computer using a motherboard from the Core 2 era as newer motherboards might cause issues with it.



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[Elixer]

If you might want to try a 3rd party program for an especially janky HDD Spinrite might work for you. You make a CD then boot from the CD to dos to run Spinrite.

Has Spinrite worked for anyone?
I tried it a long time ago on a few drives, and even after days, it didn't do anything special, the drive was still toast.

OP, get crystaldiskinfo, portable version (free), and see what it shows for that HD.

 

[Cerb]

Spinrite can help get an HDD to try doing more than just recover bad sectors for minutes on end. Other than that, I'm pretty sure it will just end up causing more problems.

 

[Jembo]

You might consider attempting to clone the drive first by booting from a Linux distro or different PC.

 

[blankslate]

Has Spinrite worked for anyone?
I tried it a long time ago on a few drives, and even after days, it didn't do anything special, the drive was still toast.

It helped me recover a janky drive that was suddenly took a turn for the worst and became slow as molasses. After I used SpinRite on it. I was able to get all the data off of that drive and put it in an enclosure just for SneakerNet use. The drive is still functional but not trusted to store things long term.

As with most software ymmv. I suspect the drive you tried it on was so dead that no software would work on it.


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[RecoveryForce]

Spinrite is snake oil that does not recover data. I wrote a blog about it quite some time ago - http://www.recoveryforce.com/spinrite-a-data-recovery-program/.

Deepspar has a great youtube video explaining why read ignoring ECC does not work any more on pretty much any current hard drive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_AhZeQtN7k

Once Spinrite loses the data from a sector that it has forced to remap, that data is lost forever. I had a client bring in a drive that would ID before he ran Spinrite. It had deep rings in the platter when Spinrite completed its full weekend process. Not a single sector was recovered from the drive.

Always start with a full sector-by-sector clone of a drive. If you cannot read from the bad drive, nothing good can come from trying to fix it by writing to it.

Edit: I know that I posted a link back to my company's blog. But, it didn't make sense for me to copy and past the entire blog on this post.

 

[blankslate]

Spinrite is snake oil that does not recover data. I wrote a blog about it quite some time ago - http://www.recoveryforce.com/spinrite-a-data-recovery-program/.

Deepspar has a great youtube video explaining why read ignoring ECC does not work any more on pretty much any current hard drive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_AhZeQtN7k

Once Spinrite loses the data from a sector that it has forced to remap, that data is lost forever. I had a client bring in a drive that would ID before he ran Spinrite. It had deep rings in the platter when Spinrite completed its full weekend process. Not a single sector was recovered from the drive.

Always start with a full sector-by-sector clone of a drive. If you cannot read from the bad drive, nothing good can come from trying to fix it by writing to it.

Edit: I know that I posted a link back to my company's blog. But, it didn't make sense for me to copy and past the entire blog on this post.

I disagree with you. That's not to say that other programs probably wouldn't work to temporarily repair a drive with issues. In my experience Spinrite can get drives in trouble (obviously not if the HD has an internal mechanical failure issue) to a state where you can clone them and I don't disagree with the advice to copy all of the data to a new drive at that point.

Not everyone who you encounter with an HD issue has a new HD in their system and may not understand that you should back up everything you value.



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[nanaki333]

grab the hiren boot cd/usb. tons of tools. i use hiren all the time when i need to read raw data from a failed hdd on my work bench.

http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd

 

[Elixer]

Spinrite is snake oil that does not recover data. I wrote a blog about it quite some time ago - http://www.recoveryforce.com/spinrite-a-data-recovery-program/.

Deepspar has a great youtube video explaining why read ignoring ECC does not work any more on pretty much any current hard drive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_AhZeQtN7k

Nice video, forensics on a HD is sure time consuming...

As for spinrite, as the video shows, seems it is pretty much worthless for anything made in the last 4 years.
If the HD don't even support the commands anymore, then spinrite is just spinning its wheels going nowhere fast.

When I did my tests with spinrite, it was back when win2k was around, so, even back then, it is of questionable value. It might work for some, in very specific circumstances, but, I don't really put any faith in it.