hard drive recovery 5

[pawz]

I think I am on a loser here, but I can ask. I recently bought a job lot of hard drives (old ones)expecting that there would at least be a few good'uns and of reasonable size because they were 'ex-equipment' and therefore were working. When I got them home I discovered that they were ex-MoD. This immediately suggests that they would be thoroughly wiped, and so they are - to the point where they are unusable. They appear to be in a good state physically -no missing labels or parts, but just click aimlessly on spin-up. Even the ones in caddies are the same. I think they have all been neatly stored and then exposed to a strong magnetic force - degaussed is it?
If this is so, is there ANY way I can recover them to a state of usability??

miserable Gracie


Gracie

 

[ReddLefty]

Even if degaussed, the hard drives should still start up. Degauss is basically like a floppy disk degauss... it just scrambles all the magnetic data on the plates making it unreadable since it will make no sense... but you should be able to plug the drive in and FDISK it (partition it) then format it.

Unless they are physically all defective... that would be a bummer... and a bad buy. :-(

Good luck.




"In space, nobody can hear you click..."

 

[technome]

There is a servo sector on IDEs, the low level formatting is controlled by this. If it is erased, the drive is useless, unless you can get a utility from the manufacturer to reapply the info on it.

 

[edfair]

Depending on what was written to the boot sector. There are combinations written there that disable access, some that can be brought back to life with fdisk /mbr, and some that can be brought back with a zerofill/lowlevel format.
Manufacturers generally make available diagnostic disks for evaluation and have a zero fill as one of the utilities.

Ed Fair
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[ReddLefty]

The servo sector is now laser embedded (since 1990). Degauss is not supposed to affect it anymore, unless your drives are all older than 1990....




"In space, nobody can hear you click..."

 

[jbentley78]

ReddLefty is correct. I use a bulk tape eraser to scramble hard drives that come back from our customers, and it does not affect the functionality of the drives. If your drives and clanking or clicking when you power up and do not stop that can be a very bad sign. At that point I generally grab a new drive.

A diagnostic that I like to use for diagnosing hard drive problems is Data Advisor by Ontrack. It used to be free for the light version now I think it is free to try. To get a little more in depth with any data on the drives I would use DrivePro, but that is a fairly expensive product.

J Bentley

 

[Vetinari78]

could be a virus in the boot sector, i've heard of one or two that make it sound like the platten have warped.

 

[rockerfellerz]

Try Powermax from Maxtor. It has decent diagnostics, can do a low level format, and it's free.

If you're going through Hell...keep going... (Winston Churchill)
RocKeRFelLerZ

 

[pawz]

well thanks to you all for your help - and my apologies for posting in the wrong place too, I saw after that there is a dedicated hard drive topic.

Most of the drives do click, as if they are looking for the next thing to do and not finding it. Lights flash, they spin up and then down. The problem with all the excellent utilities you mention - some of which I have - is that they require the drive to be recognised as being there and having an identity before they can go to work. The IDE bus knows a drive is there because it says so in the bus info bit of PC-Check's utility, but nothing else even acknowledges that a hard drive is on the system, so I cannot do anything.

The thing about the servo info is most relevant I think, but it doesn't seem these drives have been individually sabotaged - some are neatly packaged in clear bags, some are in caddies. Why would someone deliberately destroy the drives usefulness, then package them and store them in boxes? Doesn't make sense to me. Then you say that disks later than 1990 ( and these are) cannot be degaussed, so does that mean my idea that a strong electro-magnetic field has been applied to the stacked drives would have had no effect?

If it is the servo information we need, is it possible to get the data from the manufacturers? Probably not. My hubsand is an electrical engineer, and sees this as a challenge, but I fear without the technique equipment and info we need to do to the disks what must have been done to them at the very first, I cannot see that anything can be achieved..

erm, anyone like a novelty coaster? Very hard-wearing, very cheap!!

Gracie

 

[ReddLefty]

Most problems are that the heads are damaged. If your husband feel up to it and you have more that one brand and model that are the same, you can try to fix one with the other. Just make sure that you are in a room with the least dust as possible and no air circulation (wind). If a single spec of dust lands on one of the plates, it can cause bad sectors.

If you hear clicking noise.. that's usually a head that is damaged. Replacing them is not that complicated, but it's delicate.





"In space, nobody can hear you click..."

 

[nuxalktech]

Personally - I would try a low-level, then FDISK and then Format...

Once that is done - use a hard drive utility to test the drive/s

IBM and Seanix both have good free hard drive utilities at their sites...

 

[nuxalktech]

Sorry.. that last post should have read

Seagate instead of Seanix...

 

[Hainley]

How can you low level format if the system isn't recognizing the drive though? I am guessing that when Gracie boots up with one of these machine, the POST is showing something like <NONE> at that IDE location?

Try and see if any of these work for you, Gracie:

http://www.midwayisd.org/PDFs/help/200ways.pdf

By the way, you wouldn't happen to have an IBM DeskStar 60GB HDD in that lot, would you?

Cheers!

 

[pawz]

Hainley has identified the problem - however good the utility, unless the drive is recognised in the BIOS, it can do nothing. Maxtor's Powermax, which Rockerfellerz recommended has got a drive recognition ability, and I did actually get one drive up and running through it, but I have not been able to repeat that success so far. I have utils for Seagate, Fujitsu, though haven't tried that one yet, Western Digital and, ummmm, oh yes, Maxtor. I am going to look for a Quantum one tonight. Hadn't thought of IBM - thanks for that nux .
Sorry Hainley, I don't got a 60Gb Deskstar - I would like that too! The 200 ways to revive a hard disk pdf I have actually got somewhere, but I had forgotten about that, so ta for reminding me, however, I am not hopeful for the same reason I opened this response with; that I don't see how I can do anything unless the drive is recognised. We are now seriously considering dismantling them to get a bit back from the aluminium, but I think it a sad end for what should be perfectly good and usable drives, if only I knew how to restore the disk identity. Hmph. Thanks for all your help chaps.

Gracie

 

[edfair]

Drive utilities can write into thin air. If the message happens to hit something that will respond back then the utility can gain control.

Somewhat like turning the outside light on, if there is a good bulb there you'll probably have light.

Ed Fair
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[pawz]

oh, that is interesting Ed -gives me a bit of heart to go on and try a bit more. Bless ya!

Gracie

 

[ANFPS26]

Good metaphor (or was that a simile), Ed!

Jim