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Uninitialized HDD Data Recovery

Tags:
  • Data Recovery
  • Storage
  • Hard Drives
  • System Recovery
Last response: in Storage
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October 17, 2013 12:31:39 PM

Excuse me for any mistakes (grammatical or otherwise) here, I've been at this for 5 hours straight and am still no closer to figuring out what's going on than where I was when I started...

So I'm having a problem with my 1 TB HDD which I am using for storage. I've had this disk for quite some time and the files on it are very useful to me, so I'd prefer not loosing any data on it. The problem first occurred when I booted up my PC and noticed the drive was gone from My Computer. Now, since this occurred several times before for me, I turned the PC off, checked all the wires and booted up again, which usually fixes the problem (sometimes I need to rebuild the bootsector but that's it). I checked Disk Storage under Computer->Manage, and it does locate the physical drive, but it says that the disk is uninitialized and unallocated. Not knowing what that meant, the first time round I just clicked to initialize the disk, however the MBR option threw an error so I went with the GPT option. Then, I tried messing with the wires (since I have two HDD's using SATA cables, I tried switching the cables and using different sockets). After that, I tried using a system restore point to try and get the MBR and Boot Table for the disk back from a working date (I at first thought that a faulty boot might be the cause of the problem). Unfortunately, this didn't work either. So I started Googling which ended up, again, to no avail. I tried using three different disk recovery programs, but none worked (always stuck at 0% recovery, one of them displayed a Cyclic Redundancy Check error with the drive). The drive still displays as uninitialized and unallocated (which is odd, considering I did initialize the disk to GPT before using System Restore) in the Disk Manager. I'm pretty much slamming my head against a stone wall now - I'm now completely out of ideas, and I can't stress enough how much I'd hate loosing the data from the disk. The best possible solution for me would be to recover the HDD's partition with all files and folders intact.

tl;dr - I need to recover data from a disk that displays as uninitialized and unallocated after a boot - disk data recovery programs didn't work. (If I'd have to guess, I'd say the disk's cable disconnected while the computer was running).

Disk recovery tools I've tried so far; Runtime Software's GetDataBack, Wondershare's Data Recovery, DiskInternals' NTFS Recovery.

Since the files on the HDD aren't essential or irreplaceable (the disk has pretty much so far been a dumping ground for literally any files I came across in the span of about 4 years - music, pictures, videos, games, software, fixes, patches, project ideas I had, etc...), I could try and format the disk and then try to recover them using the above-stated software. However, if anyone knows of a way to save the files without risking wiping them out completely in the process, I'd rather try a different approach.

EDIT: Grammar and more info about the disk recovery software. Also, forgot to mention the hardware part of what I've tried to fix it so far. Added an additional explanation considering disk formatting.

More about : uninitialized hdd data recovery

a c 336 G Storage
October 17, 2013 3:03:56 PM

The very first sector appears to be inaccessible, so this would suggest that the drive may have an internal fault.

Does it identify itself with the correct model number and full native capacity?
October 17, 2013 3:16:51 PM

fzabkar said:
Does it identify itself with the correct model number and full native capacity?


It does indeed; the drive's name and size appear correctly in any/all software I've used, including in Windows (Disk Manager).

I've investigated the matter further, and it would seem that the drive is still intact (as in, it's still functional, but unformatted/uninitialized).
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a c 336 G Storage
October 17, 2013 3:36:09 PM

Try running a bootable version of the manufacturer's diagnostic tool against the drive (eg SeaTools, Data ifeGuard).
October 17, 2013 3:50:24 PM

Forgot to mention the actual drive in question (duuh); it's a Samsung HD103SJ 1TB disk (and correct me if I'm wrong, but essentially Samsung = SeaGate if I'm not mistaken, at least as far as HDD's are concerned). Searching the net for a diagnostic tool now...

EDIT: Downloaded and installed SeaTools for Windows. It took it's merry time, but it managed to successfully search through my PC to find the troublesome HDD - running a short generic test now.
October 17, 2013 4:16:00 PM

Apologies for double-posting...

The HDD, when ran through SeaTool's tests, unsurprisingly failed miserably at every test except, interestingly, the S.M.A.R.T Check (which is, as SeaTools state, a test which "checks drives Self Monitoring and Reporting Test to check drive has had not failures reported."). Doesn't seem like there's much more I can do in SeaTools, except running an Advanced Test, which I dare not do. So far, the HDD has failed both the Short and Long Generic Tests, and the Short Drive Self Test.

I'm turning in for the night and I'll be checking back tomorrow morning to try a few more things before calling the Time of Death on this one. :( 

EDIT: Well, I just wanted to chime in again, I'm giving up on this one. Tried the bootable version of SeaTools and a few other tricks I found on the net but I've made no progress whatsoever. RIP Samsung TB, you will be missed :( 
!