Is my HDD Dead?

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larghaz

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New laptop coming this week so I wanted to back up my secondary drive which has about 200 - 300Gb worth of pictures comics, 52Gb of videos and other stuff. The drive is 1TB 5600 rpm.

I did a check disk before copying the stuff to an external. Being a dumb, I continued browsing and the laptop froze while the scan was running (the crash happened because of an unrelated problem with the video card such as: 1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q4kpHNcrGo 2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAkkWB_Wuiw 3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXiajPMGX24 4. http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/QO7mhqnzYBs/mqdefault.jpg). I had to hold down the power button to turn the thing off.

The system didn't detect the drive at first, so I did an actual reset and it showed up again. I can get in the drive and see the folders are there, so I thought everything's normal.

But when I tried to go into a folder in to copy something into it, it takes forever. I didn't know what to do, trying to end the process wasn't working. So dumb move number 2, I held down the power button again.

Drive didn't show up even after a regular reset. I took it out and put it in an external enclosure. It didn't give any clicking sounds and sounded pretty normal.

Laptop detected the enclosure, but not the drive. Disk management said it was not initiated or unallocated or something. I didn't want to risk losing data, so I didn't do anything and put the drive back in the laptop.

The system detected it and I can see all the folders like it would normally show. I didn't risk copying anything into it again and just ran Check Disk with the boxes for "Automatically fix file system errors" and "Attempt recovery of bad sectors" ticked on.

The scan started last Saturday at 10:30pm and I decided to just cancel it Monday Morning when it had 43k+ Files Processed.

Restarted the laptop and it just stayed in the Starting Windows screen indefinitely.

I took the drive out and stuck it in an enclosure again, then Windows booted fine. I plug the drive as an external and it shows it detects the drive, but not as a usable one. D: shows up but I can't access it.

I try something like Partition Wizard and if I start the program while the drive is in the Usb it stops responding trying to start. But if I let the program start, then put the drive in, and refresh the drives it shows up.

I explore the partition and my stuff is still there. I try to access anything on it, the program stops responding again. I thought it was the MBR, but the option to repair that is greyed out.

Now I try to use Partition Wizard again, and when it tries to load the drive it says something along the lines of "Updating Drives" indefinitely. Then I click X on that small window that says that, and another one shows up, so I let it finish. When it does finish, it says that data is still on the drive. I click explore drive, and sure enough it says that my folders are still there.

But when I try to do anything, like recover partition or do a surface scan, the program just stops responding. Same goes when I go to My Computer and just right-click on the drive.

This is what it looks like: http://i.imgur.com/SfPDGXM.jpg

The green progress indicator on the address bar also goes on indefinitely.

What can I do to get that data back? If I plug it into the new laptop as an external, will I get this same problem or will it recognize the drive and function normally?
 
Solution
F
It sounds like your drive has numerous bad sectors. The safest approach is to clone your drive sector-by-sector using a tool (eg ddrescue) that knows how to work around bad sectors, and then use data recovery software on the clone.

Ddrescue can perform multipass cloning. It clones the easy sectors on the first pass, and attempts the more difficult ones on subsequent passes. It can also clone your drive in reverse, thereby disabling lookahead caching. It keeps a log, allowing it to resume after an interruption.

http://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/ddrescue.html

Ubuntu Rescue Remix:
http://ubuntu-rescue-remix.org/

Install Ubuntu Rescue Remix to a Flash Drive...
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larghaz

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I don't have access to a PC, but I've tried putting it back in my current laptop, in which case is stays at the "Starting Windows" screen indefinitely.

It's the secondary drive which doesn't have the OS (I'm using Windows 7 if it's of any importance, the new laptop is gonna be Windows 8 when it gets here).

The drive is about 2 - 3 years old, and has been very reliable before all this happened.

I'm looking for a solution where I don't have to spend money to get a Recovery Company to do it for me.
 
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BMOSound

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Do you have a friend/family member that have a computer you could plug it in? (Only thing i can think of sorry). If youve already ordered a new laptop, wait for that to arrive and see if detects it as an external drive. Or try someone elses laptop
 
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anti-painkilla

anti-painkilla

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I have been meaning to look into this for a while. I do recovery on HDD's all the time, and unless the drive it physically faulty I can usually get back the majority of the data uncorrupted.

I use a paid program and was meant to look into free programs for data recovery but forgot about it.

What I use is GetDataBack for NTFS. This will definately get the data back as the file system is the only thing corrupted and not a physical fault. You could google to look for free software. The software is USD$79, so expensive for a one off. They have a demo so you can see the file it can recover but will not let you copy them until you pay for it.

I will hopefully get back to you in a few days with some free software. Testing it will be another story, as the best I have to use it a 1.5TB.
 
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larghaz

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Yeah, I'm waiting for the new laptop right now. First delivery attempt should be on Thursday afternoon.


I have Stellar Phoenix and Partition Wizard. The problem is though, with my situation, I can't even get programs to access the drive since they stop responding when I try. Even just right-clicking on the drive from My Computer causes it to give me the Windows Blue Circle Loading indicator indefinitely, not to mention the Green Progress bar on the Address bar also goes on forever too.
 
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anti-painkilla

anti-painkilla

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Haha do not look at the HDD in My Computer or Computer Management. Windows tries to work out what it is and has a spasm.

I am trying with Recuva (free recovery software) at the moment. Will update you when I have news.

This latest HDD took a week to recover and multiple tries with Get Data Back, so I think it will be able to put anything to the test.

Update: Recuva seems more for deleted files rather than entire corrupted HDD's. I have a feeling it is going to list each file individually rather than using the file system (folders and subfolders).
 
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anti-painkilla

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Nope. Just the file system is messed up. The files are there, just the computer does not know where they are.

Dead is if there is a fault with the HDD. Either not spinning up or damage to the platter. These need to go to experts with clean rooms that charge a lot.

 
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larghaz

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That's a relief. I went to one of those Recovery Centers a few years ago and got a quote when I actually had a drive that was giving clicking and scratching sounds. They wanted more money than I was willing to pay for the data. So I bit the bullet that time.

So, I'm guessing simply plugging it into a different computer/laptop's not the ticket either?

I went into Event Viewer and found a lot of of these:
The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk1\DR1. (Source is under Disk)

The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk2\DR2. (Source is under Disk)

The STEC3 service failed to start due to the following error: (Source is under Service Control Manager)
The system cannot find the file specified.

A timeout (30000 milliseconds) was reached while waiting for a transaction response from the ShellHWDetection service. (Source is under Service Control Manager)

The system failed to flush data to the transaction log. Corruption may occur. (Source is under NTFS) (This one was a Warning instead of an Error)

An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk1\DR1 during a paging operation. (Source is under Disk) (This one was a Warning instead of an Error)

The time on them were roughly when I tried to access the drive through the recovery program, Partition Wizard, or with My Computer. These sound serious, are they anything to worry about (specially that last one)?
 
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fzabkar

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It sounds like your drive has numerous bad sectors. The safest approach is to clone your drive sector-by-sector using a tool (eg ddrescue) that knows how to work around bad sectors, and then use data recovery software on the clone.

Ddrescue can perform multipass cloning. It clones the easy sectors on the first pass, and attempts the more difficult ones on subsequent passes. It can also clone your drive in reverse, thereby disabling lookahead caching. It keeps a log, allowing it to resume after an interruption.

http://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/ddrescue.html

Ubuntu Rescue Remix:
http://ubuntu-rescue-remix.org/

Install Ubuntu Rescue Remix to a Flash Drive:
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/install-ubuntu-rescue-remix-to-a-flash-drive/

Clone a failing Windows hard disk with ddrescue on Ubuntu Rescue Remix:
http://keystoneisit.blogspot.com/2011/08/clone-failing-windows-hard-disk-with.html

Use Ubuntu Live CD to Backup Files from Your Dead Windows Computer:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/use-ubuntu-live-cd-to-backup-files-from-your-dead-windows-computer/

Data recovery professionals recommend R-Studio as their gold standard (US$50), but there are freeware tools.
 
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Solution
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larghaz

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Hardware wise, in order to do this, I'll need:
1 Flash Drive - Check
1 Hard Drive to clone the original into - I have a drive for it, but does it have to be unallocated?
1 Blank CD or DVD For Ubuntu Live CD - A DVD-RW should work right?
1 Different Hard Drive to put the data from the clone drive into - Check

Once the drive is cloned, can't I just go into Windows and use it to copy the data into another drive?

Anything else? Also, won't Ubuntu also have the problem of programs not responding when they try to access the drive? Also, if I mess anything up from those, how much worse can my situation get? I guess what I'm really asking is if there's a more fool proof way to do all of that, hopefully one that's more GUI and less command lines.

Downloaded DDrescue, do I unpack this into the flash drive that I install Ubuntu Rescue Remix into? If so, what program do I use to do that? Winrar keeps saying it can't open it.

When I try sudo ddrescue it gives me this: http://imageshack.us/a/img534/1567/wyzf.jpg

When I try to boot Ubuntu with the broken drive attached via usb I get stuck at this screen: http://imageshack.us/a/img69/9826/95jj.jpg

It boots properly when that drive isn't plugged at all. Also, BIOS picks up on the drive when it's plugged into USB. I guess that's a good thing?
 
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anti-painkilla

anti-painkilla

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So Recuva has finally finished. It shows the individual files but when you recover them it rebuilds the file structure in the target location.

If you want to give this a try this is probably the easiest option. It took 15ish hours to scan a 1.5TB HDD.
 
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larghaz

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Recuva stopped responding just like the other programs.
 
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larghaz

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The second picture was taken first. I didn't post it up since it booted again after I took the drive out.
 
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larghaz

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I had to stop the process for now since I had to copy some things and backup my bookmarks from the main drive into a different external to get ready for the new laptop. I'll probably try cloning it again on Saturday. Might even try plugging the drive I'm trying to recover into the new laptop and see what happens.

I'm no longer as confident about the 0 Errors that it was showing seeing that it was only for 1.5 MB so far with the rest of 1TB to go. It has me wondering, it took 12 hours to get to 1.5 MB, it's gonna take a real long time for the whole thing. I really hope this pans out. It's the most promising solution so far.
 
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larghaz

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I put the drive in the laptop again thinking that it would make ddrescue go faster.

Ubuntu wouldn't load properly because of this message:
http://imageshack.us/a/img202/1045/drde.jpg

Do I leave it alone?

Went to get mail and came back to this:
http://imageshack.us/a/img547/2635/b5ig.jpg

Ubuntu eventually loaded up but when I try lshw again it doesn't find anything:
http://imageshack.us/a/img542/4737/ne25.jpg

I put the drive into an enclosure again and I get this even when theres 2 usb drives and the flash drive plugged in:
http://imageshack.us/a/img191/7690/jwp8.jpg

What do I do?
 
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anti-painkilla

anti-painkilla

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Going back to Recuva as I have not used the Ubuntu tools. When does the program stop responding? If Windows shows the HDD then Recuva should be able to as well. I do leave it for large periods of time between steps that the program seems to 'lock up' with, 30 mins to an hour as I am usually in and out of the workshop.

 
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larghaz

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larghaz

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It's been about a week or so, and it's still at about 30GB rescued, 0 errors. Does it usually take this long for a 1TB hard drive? And what are the chances that all 1TB of it will be 0 errors?
 
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larghaz

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DDRescue found some sort of Error in September, and I ran it again:

http://imageshack.us/a/img560/6109/i3zx.jpg

Screenshot taken in September, and I still have it running. It's got 50MB Rescued now. The 300+MB seems to be what I had there before all this happened. Seeing that it has rescued that much sort of brings hope, but only getting 50MB since September to now, sort of makes me think otherwise.
 
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