Maxtor HD failure

[stephen2d]

Hi everyone,
I have recently purchased a Maxtor 30gb HD IDE 3.5" with a suitable case (used as an external HD) and a month after installing it, copied all the data on it, etc. I had a click of death! I thought of it as a reliable HD and was going to do a back-up once I have gathered all the data on it from various sources (I only have a laptop, so I needed the space and deleted everything once all transfered on my new HD - pretty stupid). Anyway, I have argued with the company that sold it to me and managed to convince them to pay for the data recovery by people who specialise in it. Well, they didn't manage to do it and they report was "faulty few sectors of data at the manufacturing process and only the manugacturer has the code for it..." basically they didn't want to assist them.

I'd like to know whether you had similar experience with this and especially with Maxtor (I know of the scandal with IBM HD is very similar). Also, I heard it still might be possible to recover the data somehow.

Please help.

thanks,

Stephen

ps. Do your back-ups!

 

[TekTippy4U]

The "data recovery" people (whoever they are), in their response are referring to LLF (Low-Level Formatting).....
If this is what you want to try to recover data.......then you need to go to Maxtor's website for the Specific software for LLF,(usually free) unique to that man. and probably model of HDD..

Or you can buy somewhat expensive Generic (which I don't think you want to do) Third-Party......but be careful about knock-offs and freebies

Notification:
These are just "my" thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions....I try very hard to impart correct info at all times.

 

[TekTippy4U]

Here's a link;

http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/downloads/powermax.htm

Notification:
These are just "my" thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions....I try very hard to impart correct info at all times.

 

[mijan]

If the drive was sent to a data recovery place then why could the data not be recovered. i have seen this problem reported here in the past and i suggested to who ever it was to try

http://www.computer-recovery.com

they are good this type of loss.

 

[TekTippy4U]

MIJAN:
It sounds like they(data recovery twits) gave him some kind of BS excuse

Notification:
These are just "my" thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions....I try very hard to impart correct info at all times.

 

[stephen2d]

Than you guys so far for your tips. This is what the data recovery people sent me in their mail:

"As discussed on the phone, we were unable to recover data from your
disk.

The fault appears to be related to corrupted factory-installed data on the first few sectors of the disk

Only the manufacturer has access to this coding.

We have unsuccessfully sought the assistance of the Maxtor agents in NZ and regional representatives in Hong Kong.

Sincerely..."

Does it make any sense or is it just bollox?

 

[edfair]

Somewhere on the disk, and I can believe the front, there is a sector that has the parameters of the drive encoded.
Later drives supposedly have the info scribed on with a laser but I've not found any way to verify that.
Assuming that you have one that is not reading the parameters you will not be able to get the physical layout into the CMOS.
You could try a google search for "data recovery" and get some links to companies that do this regularly. They have equipment that allows them to gain control and read the data. But it is expensive, hands on and labor intensive.
I've had a customer use Cherry Systems in Atlanta and they pulled data off something I had no hope for.

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.

 

[TekTippy4U]

Stephen2d;

>>The fault appears to be related to corrupted factory->>installed data on the first few sectors of the disk...

bollox I say;
The data isn't corrupted......Their means (data rec. twits) of reading it, is...(unless ofcourse you've tried to LLF with some other software, in which case the Maxtor's LLF should restore it and it's original faulty marked areas)...Every HDD ever made has faulty sectors, and the Original Manu.'s(Maxtor) LLF procedure marks these sectors as BAD and Doesn't write to these sectors.......the LLF divides the disk's tracks into a particular number of sectors....it also fills each sector's data area with a dummy byte value or a pattern of test values(along with a bunch of other 'header and trailer' checksum markings to mark the sector's beginning and end and each CHS and track.)

I've heard in this list from others, that LLF(only with Man. software) will enable you to recover data....I personally don't know for sure.....

It seems from their(data recov) statement above, that all they need is the Maxtor Software for LLF......and D/loadable from Maxtor's website.......as I noted above...
Not "maxtor agent"(Agent Smith? maybe.....:>)

IMO if the disc was Bad/Faulty to begin with, you wouldn't have been ever able to use it in the first place

Notification:
These are just "my" thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions....I try very hard to impart correct info at all times.

 

[edfair]

TT4U,
LL software , or the equivalent on several controller boards will rewrite the contents of those usable sectors on the hard drive. But it will be overwriting the existing data at the same time. And that would be a problem since the data is what is needed.

The drive identification stuff isn't on the any of the usable sectors.



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.