ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Had a hard disc fail today.

It refuses to be read, although will autodetect ok. You can hear the heads move about like its trying to re-read a dodgy sector, but that's about it.

Gives the error on boot up: A disc read Error has occured.

When used on another system as a slave drive, the system hangs half way through booting when it tries to access the slave drive (it just clicks away). So I presume it's dead.

But I was wondering if there are any ways to retrieve any data off it, as not everything was backed up (personal data and schedules, e-mails etc)???

BTW it's an IBM 40gig 7200rpm Ultra ATA IDE drive, I can't seem to find any diagnostic tools for it. Strange how all the drives I've had - the ones I have had problems with have been IBM ones!!

Thanks In advance

Beauregard

It is possible to get the disk looked at by a company called Ontrac, but the basic cost is about £1000. They take the HDD apart and read the platters directly in a vacuum. We send them a couple of disks per year and the results are usually very good.

BuRR

Try (if you have one) swapping the controller board over from another identical drive.

BuRR

btw... the 40 Gig Hitachi / IBM Deskstar is commonly known as the "Deathstar" due to its high failure rate!

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

I think if the user want's their e-mails and fancy screensaver back I'll tell them they'll have to cough up the 1K

The drive is a Deathstar And I suspect that the one of the other (identical) systems also had one fitted too...not good - seeing its also a server

Just managed to find and download all the IBM/hitachi and other diagnostic stuff, so that'll be under scruitiny and I'll make sure it's all backup before said crap hits the fan.

May decomission it and try swapping the controllers too

Thanks

AL

lightning101

Try a program called Ontrack DataRecovery, if you can find it


It is also possible to break it apart and rebuild the spindle on another working drive - cheaper than £1000.

greasemonkey

Oops. Bet that's a mistake you won't make again!

By the looks of things you've already found the Drive Fitness Test for IBM/Hitachi drives here. If you run an advanced test, with a bit of luck it will pick up and flag faulty sectors. Once that's been done, you should be able to read what's left with another system, as you've already tried. No need to muck about stripping the drive down and swapping bits - or paying OnTrack silly money to get the data back.

Would also be worth looking at the Warranty section of the HGST site to see if your drive is still in cover. If nothing else you might get a free replacement out of it. FWIW the more recent IBM/Hitachi products don't seem to suffer the reliability issues that were a problem with the original glass/magnetic products.

Miles

I've used MjM Data Recovery in the past when the harddisk in my laptop died, got back everything too. Cost £500, but as that was six months ago, can't quite remember.

Beauregard

Telling the user that it is going to cost £1000 and they may get nothing back usually makes the problem go away very quickly. But we have a user base of 4000 and there are always those whose lost data really is worth the money.

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

I ran the diagnostic tool today, just to confirm my suspicsions on my own system...."defective device" was the error...well not **** sherlock It refuses to repair the bad sectors too.

I've also informed poeple about the Deathstar drives fitted to the other systems (same make and age) To backup everything, and I'll go a hunting for some new drives. I've already replaced the dead one (PC world..I know, I know). I'm not very chuffed about this as "systems administartor" is not in my job description

Oh, and the user of the system with the dead drive wasn't willing to the pay the £500 plus to regain their beloved screen saver and e-mails

R1916v

We send a couple of discs off a year, costly but we make the user pay from their budget a sthere is no reason for them to be keeping data on their local machine, we tell them enough times!