RAW SATA HDD File Recovery

[Yayo3p]

I have always been able to retrieve files from corrupted HDD using Free software (TrueImage, EaseUS, Find and Mount, any other possible free recovery software). Problem was that the person responsible for this HDD to get RAW/Corrupted, dropped their computer and had important files in there knowing that I have a shared server with mapped shared drives/folders that gets backup twice a day. With that being said, I removed that HDD and connected it to my Win7 computer and it installed the driver but once the pop up saying "You need to format this HDD blah blah blah before you can use it. Do you want to format" the drive automatically disconnects and it does not remain connected. I have obviously GOOGLED but have not found a solution for this. Does this mean the HDD is completely gone or can I do something to have the HDD remain connected? :|

 

[Elixer]

If this data is important, stop messing with the drive and send it to the pros.
If it isn't, then you could try a PCB swap, however, seems like when they dropped it, they caused severe damage, and the drive is turning itself off to protect itself.

 

[tortillasoup]

If this data is important, stop messing with the drive and send it to the pros.
If it isn't, then you could try a PCB swap, however, seems like when they dropped it, they caused severe damage, and the drive is turning itself off to protect itself.

Funny thing about the Pros is that at least in the case of my sister's hdd, they didn't want to do anything with it and charged her a hefty fee anyway. They suck. I've seen more advanced data retrieval techniques on this message board than the companies seemed to be capable of. I asked them if they did any board swaps or disc swaps and they said no.

 

[Elixer]

Funny thing about the Pros is that at least in the case of my sister's hdd, they didn't want to do anything with it and charged her a hefty fee anyway. They suck. I've seen more advanced data retrieval techniques on this message board than the companies seemed to be capable of. I asked them if they did any board swaps or disc swaps and they said no.

Which place was this, sounds more like a scam than true professionals.
Most recovery places will give you an initial estimate up front, and if more work is required, they will tell you that as well, along with the added cost.

 

[CiPHER]

Raw partition often means bad sectors on the HDD. This is something you can recover yourself.

Start with an output of the SMART data by using CrystalDiskInfo please. Try not to do anything else with the drive, and NEVER format it. Also do not use the manufacturer's utility, at least not until you have secured the SMART information.

 

[SERT Data Recov]

Funny thing about the Pros is that at least in the case of my sister's hdd, they didn't want to do anything with it and charged her a hefty fee anyway. They suck.

This happens all the time to my dismay, and definitely sucks: gives the real pros a bad name and scares people into not trusting anyone

Which place was this, sounds more like a scam than true professionals.

AGREED!

recovery places will give you an initial estimate up front, and if more work is required, they will tell you that as well, along with the added cost.

It's best to find someone who deals in flat rates and is transparent. Always ask if there are any additional charges up front if they claim to have FLAT rates.

Raw partition often means bad sectors on the HDD. This is something you can recover yourself.

USUALLY, however in this case where the drive has dropped there is probable yore going on. Best practices for data recovery professionals with a clean room is to first open this drive to check of internal damage (which in most cases there is), to avoid making that damage worse. Also a drive with enough bad sectors will only get worse with the "commercial" software out there able to image a drive with them.

with an output of the SMART data by using CrystalDiskInfo please. Try not to do anything else with the drive, and NEVER format it. Also do not use the manufacturer's utility, at least not until you have secured the SMART information.

Unfortunately SMART data is not going to effectively give an accurate diagnosis of the drive. In cases of "dropped" drives or computers, there is likely internal damage to the heads/platters that will get worse if the drive is running. I wouldn't suggest opening the drive either to check unless you know what you're looking for or at, and know what to do if you see it.

 

[John Connor]

Not sure if this will help. http://www.roadkil.net/program.php?ProgramID=22

 

[CiPHER]

USUALLY, however in this case where the drive has dropped there is probable yore going on. Best practices for data recovery professionals with a clean room is to first open this drive to check of internal damage (which in most cases there is), to avoid making that damage worse. Also a drive with enough bad sectors will only get worse with the "commercial" software out there able to image a drive with them.

Well, you have a commercial interest that people use commercial recovery services, and to discourage them from trying to fix it themselves.

I agree that if the data is absolutely critical, they should not attempt any rescue themselves. But in many cases, a simple RAW partition with a drive not making any weird noises, would be easily recovered by using ddrescue. This application - as you very likely know - will skip unreadable bad sectors on the first pass and will get as much information off the good portions as it can, securing them by writing them to a backup drive. Once completed, the backup drive contains a 1:1 copy of the contents of the presumably failing drive, minus the contents of the unreadable bad sectors.

Free recovery of almost all data would be possible in that case, not having to spend a lot of money on commercial recovery services. It all depends on the importance of the data. But unless it is absolutely critical data that people are willing to spend thousands of dollars on to secure, i would opt for the SMART + ddrescue route. This is not that difficult at all. Particularly when the drive is not making any noises, i would assert that the chance for additional damage is very low. The chance for creating additional bad sectors is not all that low, however, so speed is a concern. The drive should only be brought online when everything is prepared, so ddrescue can begin within seconds recovering the contents of the drive.

 

[SERT Data Recov]

Well, you have a commercial interest that people use commercial recovery services, and to discourage them from trying to fix it themselves.

I understand why you would think this, however after seeing soooo many botched DIY attempts, it's more than just a commercial interest. (not trying to be argumentative here)

But unless it is absolutely critical data that people are willing to spend thousands of dollars on to secure,....

Yes there are many companies who will take advantage of individuals who don't understand data recovery, and there are definitely OVERpriced data recovery service providers, however not all reputable DR companies charge thousands for this kind of basic recovery.

Particularly when the drive is not making any noises, i would assert that the chance for additional damage is very low. The chance for creating additional bad sectors is not all that low, however, so speed is a concern. The drive should only be brought online when everything is prepared, so ddrescue can begin within seconds recovering the contents of the drive.

I will agree that ddrescue is one of the best pieces of free (or even paid) software out there that gets the closest to the hardware used by professional DR companies to image drives with bad sectors. I also agree if the data is not worth at least $300 - $600 in these types of basic cases, then that would be the route to go. When drives that have more than a few bad sectors, the hardware that's available to overcome these types of situations can do a much better job, and in return get more data.

 

[Yayo3p]

Thanks guys, will try these softwares. The HDD data isnt highly important but I would really like to have them for future purposes as well.

 

[RecoveryForce]

@tortillasoup - As a data recovery professional, I can assure you that your negative past experience was not with a data recovery professional.

In regards to the OP's issue, a dropped drive will definitely have physical issues as a result of the drop. The drive wants to be formatted because it appears that it can read the MBR (sector 0), but cannot read anything beyond the BS. This could be because there is media damage at the front of the MFT and/or the head that is associated with the surface which contains those sectors is not reading.

The other possible issue is that you removed the drive from the enclosure and are trying to deal with it via its SATA interface. Some drives are encrypted and others have irregular block sizes which are both controlled by the USB bridge.

I can assure you that when that drive is spinning, it is only going to get worse. If you intend to stick with the DIY route, your first objective should only be to get a full sector-by-sector clone. The only software that I recommend for doing this is ddrescue, as it can handle bad sectors, multiple passes and has a log file.

As for costs for professional services, assuming that the drive is 2TB or smaller, I cannot see it being more than 1000USD. My lab here in Canada charges two possible rates:

Minor recovery - $350 CAD
Major recovery - $700 CAD + parts

I'm sure that there must be a lab in your area that also offers competitive rates.

Can you please give some details about the full model of the drive? Perhaps I can better advise.

 

[Cerb]

Well, you have a commercial interest that people use commercial recovery services, and to discourage them from trying to fix it themselves.

The thing is, the fixes we can try may irreparably damage the physical media, or the data. That's why the value of the data is important in the decision, not what may actually be wrong with the drive (or not). Imaging with gddrescue, then using testdisk to get the partition back, might be enough to get started...or, gddrescue might help ruin data that could be intact. In that latter case, the lab environment, and more careful treatment, would give better chances.

 

[CiPHER]

@SERT Data Recovery: you make a very nuanced post and I agree with what you said. And like RecoveryForce said, i do think there is a great disparity between data recovery companies that offer overpriced services and those who provide good service at fair cost.

@Cerb: I agree, but I have already stated that:

I agree that if the data is absolutely critical, they should not attempt any rescue themselves.

In many cases, the data of consumers is not so critical at all. Certainly not important enough to pay lots of bucks for. And many low-priced data recovery services simply run ddrescue themselves. So if the choice is between the waste bin and trying to recover yourself, ddrescue is your friend. For 90%+ of all consumers this would be the only option, as they are not willing to pay enough money for serious data recovery services that have their own cleanroom and proper hardware and knowledge to go much beyond with what is possible with ddrescue and possibly a replacement electronics board.

 

[John Connor]

Another option if you go it yourself is HDD Regenerator. I've used this in the past when I had a bad drive. I had to do multiple passes, but I was able to recover most of my data.

I guess it would depend on your situation though. In my case it must have been bad blocks.

 

[RecoveryForce]

Another option if you go it yourself is HDD Regenerator. I've used this in the past when I had a bad drive. I had to do multiple passes, but I was able to recover most of my data.

I guess it would depend on your situation though. In my case it must have been bad blocks.

This is a joke, right? HDD Regen starts at sector 0 and reads sectors until it gets a sector with an error. It then tries to re-read the sector a few times and then writes back what it has read or a default patter of its own which causes the drive's internal sector remapping to kick in and remap the written data to a different sector. The odds are, it won't read the sector fully or at all and the end result is that you have actually lost data in order to recover a sector. Not only is this tool destructive, the damage caused is irreversible.

First rule of data recovery is to never write back to the drive from which you are recovering from.

Second rule of data recovery is to copy every sector you read to a known healthy hard drive.

HDD Regenerator, at no point, copies a single sector to a known healthy drive and continuously writes corrupted data back to the failing drive.

To put it into perspective. You have a drive with crashing heads. Which would you prefer to have:

1. A drive that no longer reads and has severe scrapes on the platters where the heads crashed after you ran HDD Regenerator to the 99% mark?

2. A drive that has 99% of the sectors copied from the failing hard drive that now has crashed heads and severe scrapes on the platters?

I can tell you with 100% certainty, the person who went with 1 has destroyed any chance of data recovery while the person who went with 2 not only has the majority of the data recovered, they likely did so in a fraction of the time that it takes to destroy a drive with HDD Regenerator.

Sorry for coming on hard, but I'm tired of these snake oil products that not only risk losing client's data for a fee.

Clone the drive with ddrescue, it is free and is an actual data recovery program.

 

[wayliff]

https://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

 

[SERT Data Recov]

https://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

Spinrite is the last program you want to run on a damaged or failing drive. Or for data recovery at all. SEE RecoveryForce's post above

 

[John Connor]

This is a joke, right?

Did I not just say it helped me? I was able to recover my data. Well, most of it.

 

[John Connor]

https://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

Same thing as HDD Regenerator I bet.

 

[Elixer]

I have used spinrite in the past, on a known bad drive (had multiple bad sectors), and I wanted to see what it could do.
Well, after 2(!) full days of working on the HD, the bad sector count skyrocketed according to SMART, and checking the files on the HD, most all were corrupted.

Does that mean that spinrite or HDD regenerator are worthless? I suppose it highly depends on what kind of errors the HD had in the first place.
I have seen some reports where people have said it worked, but, nobody knows of the exact state the HD was in prior to running the program.

Normally, ddrescue is used to copy the bad HD to the good HD, then, you can use testdisk, or whatever else to try and recover stuff.
Jumping directly to using a recovery program is just way too risky for critical data, and worst case is, you just hosed any attempt at getting the data back, and even pros won't be able to do anything.

I am still bummed out that in 2015 SMART is still of very limited value, and in too many case, SMART reports a clean bill of health when the drive suddenly dies.

 

[wayliff]

https://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

Here is another option, and it also works. Start by creating a disk image.
https://www.runtime.org/

 

[heymrdj]

I had good luck with DriveSavers, they don't charge if data cannot be recovered. One array (8 drives, 3 drive failure) was quoted at 24K, no charge because they couldn't recover anything, and they paid for shipping. The other was a 16 drive array with a 3 drive failure, 30K, they recovered everything. Obviously the prices are large because these are big commercial RAID arrays

 

[redzo]

You could do it like this:

1. Make an identical copy of the now raw detected disk with a tool like this:
http://hddguru.com/software/HDD-Raw-Copy-Tool/
You'll need an identical capacity or bigger disk than your damaged one.

2. You work your magic on the copy with a tool like this or any other recovery tool that your heart desires:
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk
This way the source damaged drive is kept intact.

*under no circumstance: do not initialize the damaged disk using windows disk management, do not create a partition and do not format it.

The only problem is what is happening with the malfunctioned hdd while it is running.
You need to acknowledge that there is a high risk that the damaged drive will beat itself to death while it is powered on and you decrease the chances of a professional paid recovery company of recovering your data.

 

[RecoveryForce]

As for Spinrite, read my thoughts in an article I wrote about it.

http://www.recoveryforce.com/spinrite-a-data-recovery-program/

It, too, is snake oil. When these programs first hit the market, they could use the function of ignoring ECC errors and after multiple reads of a sector, try to deduce the contents and write it back and possibly salvage some of the sector. But, it still does not guarantee that you will get 100% of the sector recovered, nor does it mean that the process won't kill the drive first.

To get a better understanding of what I mean about ECC, you can watch the YouTube video posted by DeepSpar - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_AhZeQtN7k

 

[RecoveryForce]

I had good luck with DriveSavers, they don't charge if data cannot be recovered. One array (8 drives, 3 drive failure) was quoted at 24K, no charge because they couldn't recover anything, and they paid for shipping. The other was a 16 drive array with a 3 drive failure, 30K, they recovered everything. Obviously the prices are large because these are big commercial RAID arrays

Wow! I guess I should raise my rates...then I could cover shipping too. It is nice to hear that they were able to recover one of the two RAIDs.