| Author | Message | ||
     Ian MacArthur Username: nuqian Registered: N/A |
WD400EB disk crashed with vital accounts data (Sage). Not backed up of course. Moved disk to another PC (W2k) as a secondary disk and removed the drive letter as advised WD diagnostics show SMART data not available. Swopped control board from an identical drive - same result. Winhex sees the disk and identifies it correctly but cannot browse anything. Hex view shows data is present. Attempted to create a Raw image (on another disk) but keep getting messages - "Cannot read from sector xxxx WD400EB 00CFF0 Incorrect function" Seems to be two blocks of unreadable sectors but can't tell just how many (can't scroll the message window) Attempted Recovery by file type recovered nothing. What can I try now? Ian | ||
| Ian MacArthur Username: nuqian Registered: N/A |
A bit more information. While attempting to read sectors Winhex reports above message every 6 seconds or so and reports a data transfer rate of 1MB/min (for 40GB that is about 3.5 weeks to complete!) Windows Task Manager reports Winhex not responding even though it seems to be still attempting to read. HTH Ian | ||
| Alfons Kramer Username: admin3 Registered: 4-2004 |
You have several options before applying to a data recovery lab. First method: "divide et impera": try to avoid the bad sector spots. This can be accomplished with the Disktools/Clone Disk function. Uncheck the 'Copy entire medium' and specify a sector range instead. Second method: try an alternative disk access method. There are 3 different alternative disk access methods. One of them might give better results. For two of them one can specify a timeout period. Reducing the timeout period can help to overcome the bad spots. Two of the disk access methods will leave event log entries in the system event log. These entries with their sense data can give hints about the nature of the problem. Have a look at the "Technical details report". It should show the SMART status report. If it is not available the disk might be in a bad shape and the internal sector containing the SMART data cannot be read. | ||
| Ian MacArthur Username: nuqian Registered: N/A |
Thanks for thr quick response Alfons. But - First method proposed I cannot identify the boundaries of the bad sectors because I keep getting the "Cannot read..." messages and cannot stop the process except by using End Task so of course loose all the data. Thn have to reload Winhex (V14.5 BTW) Second method Where do I find the alternative disk access methods? Where is the Technical details report"; I cannot find it. Sorry for so many questions but I am a bit new at sector recovery | ||
| Stefan Fleischmann Username: admin Registered: 1-2001 |
> I cannot identify the boundaries of the bad sectors > because I keep getting the "Cannot read..." messages The first such message already identifies such a boundary. > Where do I find the alternative disk access methods? Options | General Options > Where is the Technical details report" Specialist | Technical Details Report. Available with a specialist license only. |