500GB HDD Problem

[Kyle3102]

Hi, I am having a problem with my Seagate 7200.11 barracuda hard drive. I know it's crashed, but in order to possibably get all my stuff back which I am really needing, I need to find out what is actually wrong with it. I'll tell you guys a little about what happened and please tell me what you think the problem is.

So there I am one day on my Dell Inspiron 530s. I click on the start button and everything freezes. I had to manually turn it off and reboot. When it booted I got a SMART message saying how Dell recommends that I back up all data because it found a parameter out of reach. (I should have listened). Anyway it was fine for a few hours and it happened again. This continued to happen more and more frequently in about a week and a half. Pretty soon it got to be too much, it wouldnt last 20-30mins without crashing, started getting bluescreens every other startup. And finally now, it gets a bluescreen everysingle boot. (Unmountable boot volume)

What I did to troubleshoot this was I set all bios to defaults, didnt work. Then I put it into this computer I am currently on as a 2nd HDD. It causes this computer to have a blank screen after the windows loading screen for about 5mins and then it finally loads the desktop. When I try to goto My Computer it just freezes. (Not a total freeze, I could still move mouse and ctrl al del) Anyway I downloaded seagate's seatool bootable cd image, and when I ran the tests it said the drive was not responding to commands. When I click on fix bad sectors it just says "repair failed" next to each one. I'm not sure what the problem with this is. It starts up and spins just fine, no loud noise at all. The bios recognizes it and tells me its a 500GB HDD just like it is. Thanks for your time and reading my super long post! If you need to know something just ask.

 

[BadBigBen]

you could try GetDataBack, the trial should suffice to tell you if you can access the drive at all...

if it can't then the only option of retrieving the data, would be a dedicated Data Recovery company, such as OnTrack... (expensive)...

other than that, the drive is most likely toast...


Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[goombawaho]

I would only add (to that very correct advice) that you should NOT leave the drive running if you can't see any data on it AND you intend to do professional recovery.

You don't want to take a chance that more damage is being done to the drive. Of course that depends on what's wrong with it, but better safe than sorry.

 

[Kyle3102]

Thanks for the replies. I will try what you said Ben as soon as I can. I've been researching and these drives have had alot of problems with the firmware. (30% fail rate)Do the symptoms sound like it could be a firmware problem? If so I will try updating it. (Im really wanting to avoid the very very high cost to recover lol)

 

[BadBigBen]

it is worth a shot, and yes Seagate's have had issues with their firmwares, started with the 1GB drives before... if it does not work, then get professional help ASAP, if you REALLY need the data from that drive...

had a few that failed myself, even the replacement they send went AWOL a few months after I got it... it too will be replaced soon...

and darn Seagate, will only send refurbished models as replacements... that is another reason why I prefer Western Digital, all replacements from them where new drives...




Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[Freestone]

Bricked Seagate drives were common late 2008 / early 2009. I had bricked two 500GB 7200.11 drives myself. A new flash from Seagate resolved the issue.

See my thread:

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1525155

 

[Wfrick]

I have heard in the past that sometimes you can get one last gasp out of a hard drive by freezing it. Yeah, you heard me right. I don't recall how or why it works, but the procedure involves putting it in a zip-lock freezer bag and freezing it for a couple hours. Put it into a hard drive dock and copy everything off that you can. Maybe.

That said, you may already be past this point. There are two kinds of computer users: People who have lost data, and people who are about to. If you care about your data, and it sounds like you do, you should run periodic backups. It's easy to set up an automated backup with a free tool like Syncback. Whether you choose to do this or not, you should consider any message like the one you got originally to be a critical, stop-everything-and-back-it-up-or-you're-going-to-lose-everything warning. As you learned, to ignore it is not a very good idea.

Wayne

 

[BadBigBen]

old news that is with the freezer trick...

see:

Freeze your hard drive to recover data: Myth or reality?

http://geeksaresexy.blogspot.com/2006/01/freeze-your-hard-drive-to-recover-data.html

Data Recovery From a Failed Hard Drive - Freezing Method:

http://www.datarecoverypros.com/hard-drive-recovery-freeze.html

Hard Drive Freezer Trick

http://ezinearticles.com/?Hard-Drive-Freezer-Trick&id=3482304

but don't hold your breath for it to work with SATA drives... and should ONLY be attempted as a last ditch attempt...





Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"