Dead Seagate 1TB HDD

[genetic]

I have an old Seagate ST31000528AS 1TB hard drive that has seemingly died - Not detected in Disk Management in Windows or Disk Utility on Mac.

I used a application called "HDD Raw Copy" which detected the drive in Windows - tried to transfer data, but the machine froze - I know my eSATA PCI-E card gives issues in Windows (I have a Mac but run BootCamp for Windows). Another app detected some bad sectors. Now the drive is undiscoverable.

Disk Drill in OSX detects it as an unnamed device, with the option to deep scan for data, but I've tried that option which ran for 3 days, and only got to around 8% complete (with no files found). I gave up in the end.

I've contacted SouthBit on the forum for possible data recovery, but I'm assuming the drive is dead to me without professional help?

Does anyone know of any app that can rebuild the partition, or should I just leave it up to the professionals?

 

[HavocXphere]

Comes down to how important the data is.

If its important then you've already fk'd up...the DIY solutions reduced the chances of professionals recovering anything. This is practically demonstrated by the drive going from detectable to no detectable during your DIY'ing.

Since you say its an old drive & don't seem particularly distressed about this I'm assuming the data isn't important. I've found that the best approach is to use something that mirrors the driven blindly...then mount that as a virtual drive...and then run recovery/rebuild tools against that (thus not stressing the physical drive). Haven't done this in years though so can't remember the name of the tools.

Also...JPGs and Docs contain unique sequences at start/end. So if you write code to split the raw ISO by that & rename it you do actually get some images out of it. Did this for a client a few years back. Got 100s of images that the recovery software couldn't get. Long shot but point is sorcery is possible on this front even when the usual tools fail.

 

[genetic]

Comes down to how important the data is.

If its important then you've already fk'd up...the DIY solutions reduced the chances of professionals recovering anything. This is practically demonstrated by the drive going from detectable to no detectable during your DIY'ing.

The data is somewhat important - it's an archive of my old work. Redundancy? nope... but I guess no redundancy will bite you eventually as it has with me now.

I'm going to take the drive in to the specialists and hopefully see what they can do.

 

[HavocXphere]

The data is somewhat important - it's an archive of my old work.

Well sht happens. Best to approach this with an attitude of "lets throw a *reasonable* amount of money at it & see what happens". If it doesn't work out...so be it.

I'm going to take the drive in to the specialists and hopefully see what they can do.

I'd suggest sticking to SouthBit - he does respond on the forum & hasn't put a single step wrong thus far from what I can tell. (DJ still has him in his signature years later cause he saved his arse.)

 

[genetic]

I'd suggest sticking to SouthBit - he does respond on the forum & hasn't put a single step wrong thus far from what I can tell. (DJ still has him in his signature years later cause he saved his arse.)

I used SouthBit about 8 years ago for a drive that died... (a dreaded Seagate 7200.11 drive - notorious for failing). Was happy with their service back then, so will definitely take this drive to them.

 

[sajunky]

The drive has died during copying, now is not recognisable. For 7200.11 there are solutions using terminal, but risk is yours. Once you start foool with firmware, chances for getting data back are slim.

Next time you start cloning, use proper tools and boot from DOS or OS which the tools have native OS support (at the device drive level), are able to disable sector relocation and have a right cloning strategy like DMDE or ddresque. Typically OS generate to many retries, on other side drive attempts to relocate sectors which corrupt firmware even further.

 

[SouthBit]

It's nice to hear good things about our service Thanks guys.