HDD Regenerator experts out there? Help!

[abbcccus]

I have a long story behind this, so please bear with me. A good friend of mine has been going through a tough emotional load (divorce) and failed to run backups regularly on her main computer (MacBook Pro ~2009). It died on her about half a year ago and after some troubleshooting she just bought a new computer. I tried to get her to hand over everything, but she was in her own world. I finally got her to give me the drive and the computer a little while back. The computer's fine and I had it up and running in no time. The hard drive, not so much.

She tried it in an external case but it appeared dead. She took it to Fry's for data recovery services but they couldn't do anything. I took it to the best local person in town I could find, but it was going to cost WAY too much for her. So I got busy with it. The drive did spin up, but it was otherwise unresponsive. Some of my machines wouldn't boot with it attached at all, some would give a warning about it before booting, but it was dead to Windows, OSX, and Linux. After a lot of troubleshooting and web searching I figured out it had a known issue with many Seagate drives. I ordered a usb dongle, sent the terminal commands to the drive, and it magically came back to life. At this point I figured the drive was fine and started copying directories. I got a bunch of files off . . . but then everything went haywire. Some files weren't accessible, some were corrupt, so I immediately halted. I tried imaging the drive, but that wasn't happening. Seatools won't pass it on any tests. I ran GNU DDrescue on it, and managed to get most of the stuff off the drive. It clearly has some blocks suffering from hardware damage around the 2.8 GB mark, but I don't really care as it's unlikely there's anything in that region I care about (right? Those should all be OS files, shouldn't they?). After it got past that bad patch, DDrescue flew along recovering stuff left and right . . . until about the 128 GB mark, at which point it couldn't read anything until the end of the drive. Great, that's where the stuff she really wants is. I fired up HDD Regenerator 1.51 and it confirmed those bad blocks early on the drive are really bad. But it has been doing just fine on the end of the drive. Here's the problem: it's taking TOO long. At the rate it's currently going (on for ~2 days, recovered 17 megs) it'll be years before it finishes the drive. And I don't even know if it's really working! Since it seems to be, I'm just letting it run, but I'd have to run it through DDrescue again to see if there's any new data that can be pulled from it.

So here's my question: what the hell should I do? Given what HDD Regenerator does, would something like SpinRite be able to just go on in and recover the files without messing around with fixing the bad sectors? Is there some other software that could? Would HDD Regenerator run faster if I put more ram in the machine that's running it or if I used a machine with more processing grunt? It's fixed every bad sector it's come up against so far (35,000 of them), but I can't just run this machine forever on this.

Thanks for any sage advice anyone can give!

 

[VirtualLarry]

The only comment I want to make is, if the data is that valuable, then perhaps send it to a professional?

 

[abbcccus]

The only comment I want to make is, if the data is that valuable, then perhaps send it to a professional?

I took it to a pro first, but there's an additional complication that renders that path out of the question: someone, somewhere along the way opened the drive. I'm pretty sure it was my friend who did it, but the casing has been unsealed. I don't know if the platters have ever been exposed, or if anything snuck inside, but the data recovery pro to whom I spoke said that once the drive's seal has been broken (or even possibly broken) he pretty much won't touch the job as it's too hard to figure out what's been done to it and what will be required to fix it. He told me, given the circumstances and time involved, it would be $1500 minimum to even think about it.

The data has little value beyond the sentimental. I've recovered most of what she wanted already, so this is just an exercise in me wanting to learn more and having computer-based fun!

 

[Blain]

Was the drive a WD?
If so, opening it was a very bad (maybe fatal), move for retreaving data.

Contact My Hard Drive Died for a more cost effective recovery option.

 

[groberts101]

Doubtful it will do much given the symptoms you mention here.. but since you're trying anything possible?.. there's always the old "bag it and throw it in the freezer" trick too.

 

[abbcccus]

Was the drive a WD?
If so, opening it was a very bad (maybe fatal), move for retreaving data.

Contact My Hard Drive Died for a more cost effective recovery option.

It's a Seagate 160 GB drive. It seems to be fine, other than the huge chunk of blocks marked as bad. If HDD Regenerator wasn't so incredibly slow I'd just let it run and be fine with it - I may do that anyway for a few more days.

I'll look into that website if I have no other options, thanks. Like I said, though, she doesn't want to spend any more money on this and if it goes over $100 she can't really afford it.

 

[abbcccus]

Doubtful it will do much given the symptoms you mention here.. but since you're trying anything possible?.. there's always the old "bag it and throw it in the freezer" trick too.

I thought about that, but because it's already (possibly) been opened I fear condensation inside the drive. The humidity is fairly high here, and I don't want to do anything desperate until, well, I'm desperate!

 

[groberts101]

I thought about that, but because it's already (possibly) been opened I fear condensation inside the drive. The humidity is fairly high here, and I don't want to do anything desperate until, well, I'm desperate!

just saran wrap it and/or use a towel with it placed externally(no heat/airflow from the machine).. and work fast. lol

I hear ya though.. getting into risky business there. Good luck with it all

 

[abbcccus]

just saran wrap it and/or use a towel with it placed externally(no heat/airflow from the machine).. and work fast. lol

I hear ya though.. getting into risky business there. Good luck with it all

Since the drive still seems to function just fine, my approach for now is to just do things with it that don't pose an excessive physical risk. If it starts failing in any scary ways I may be reduced to trying the old freezer routine. But at this point, if HHD Regenerator is working, I see no reason to think that taking the drive's temperature down will cause it to suddenly acknowledge that all of those sectors aren't in fact bad.

I was just hoping someone else would have run into this sort of situation who could with some confidence say to forget HDD Regenerator and try _______ .

Thanks for the advice!

 

[Blain]

A trip to the freezer is a 100% last resort, (only to be attempted if you're not going to spend any $$ on recovery).
A trip to the freezer won't do anything for bad blocks.
I've brought a drive back from death using the freezer, but I wouldn't do it at all in your case.

Options...
1. Spend the time and $$ to let a fixer program chug away at the drive, no matter how long it takes.
2. Pay for a data recovery firm to get the data back.
3. Tell your friend all hope is gone.

 

[taltamir]

someone, somewhere along the way opened the drive.

how in the world did that happen? you don't just accidentally open a drive.
And who is that "someone"?

 

[abbcccus]

how in the world did that happen? you don't just accidentally open a drive.
And who is that "someone"?

It was the person who owns it. She freaked when her laptop came up dead and rather than sensibly troubleshoot (she's been a little overly emotional since the divorce) she just cast about. She didn't open the drive, but she did remove the screws that hold it together so that it could have, depending on how it's been handled, been exposed to the elements. It seems to work fine and doesn't make any unexpected noises, but I would just as soon get the damn thing fixed up as soon as possible as who knows what the hell it's been through and / or how much longer it will run reliably.

I'm with you, I couldn't believe I received it in the state I did, but that's how it goes. She's an incredibly bright, capable woman and has extensive experience with computers . . . but on this occasion she freaked out.

 

[abbcccus]

A trip to the freezer is a 100% last resort, (only to be attempted if you're not going to spend any $$ on recovery).
A trip to the freezer won't do anything for bad blocks.
I've brought a drive back from death using the freezer, but I wouldn't do it at all in your case.

Options...
1. Spend the time and $$ to let a fixer program chug away at the drive, no matter how long it takes.
2. Pay for a data recovery firm to get the data back.
3. Tell your friend all hope is gone.

That's exactly my line of thought on this.

You've nailed these points exactly as I see them, too.

1. Is where I am right now, but I was hoping someone could suggest a faster way of doing this. I'm researching MHDD and HDAT2, but so far it looks like there's no reason to expect either to be faster or any better than HDD Regenerator. I wouldn't mind paying for SpinRite so that I can use it when / if I need it in the future, but only if it's likely to work in this case.
2. Not gonna happen - if it's over $50 it's too much, so whatever I can produce is all that's gonna be.
3. I'll tell her that when it's true. She'll be tickled pink to get back what I already have, but I'll let this machine chug away at the drive until (a) it stops being able to repair sectors, (b) the drive starts making death rattles, or (c) the drive just plain old dies if there are no other decent options.

 

[taltamir]

on this occasion she freaked out.

Alright, it happens. Thanks for explaining.

2. Not gonna happen - if it's over $50 it's too much, so whatever I can produce is all that's gonna be.

See, this is what I always see...
Friend/Family/Customer (FFC): "The data is irreplaceable! its super valuable! How could it be lost! I cannot afford to lose it! DO SOMETHING! ANYTHING!"
Me: "ok ok, I will try to recover it, how much can we spend on it?"
FFC: "spend? like money? uh... under 100$... I was thinking maybe something for a 20$?"
Me: "I see, and how much time and effort are you willing to invest in it"
FFC: "Well, I am kinda busy... and you know I am bad with computers. can't you just do it?"

What I am trying to say is that maybe this data is not nearly as important to her as you might initially think. I find it is worst the closer a family/friend is in how trivial (to them) the stuff is that they are willing to invest a very large amount of your time in.

 

[abbcccus]

See, this is what I always see...
Friend/Family/Customer (FFC): "The data is irreplaceable! its super valuable! How could it be lost! I cannot afford to lose it! DO SOMETHING! ANYTHING!"
Me: "ok ok, I will try to recover it, how much can we spend on it?"
FFC: "spend? like money? uh... under 100$... I was thinking maybe something for a 20$?"
Me: "I see, and how much time and effort are you willing to invest in it"
FFC: "Well, I am kinda busy... and you know I am bad with computers. can't you just do it?"

What I am trying to say is that maybe this data is not nearly as important to her as you might initially think. I find it is worst the closer a family/friend is in how trivial (to them) the stuff is that they are willing to invest a very large amount of your time in.

I hear you totally on this. But there are several mitigating factors. She isn't making a big deal out of the data, though at least one thing on there is a big deal to her (and of course it's at least partially in the bad zone as she modified it every day). She knows she can't spend anything on it, won't let me, and will be grateful for anything she gets back. On my side, I'm just using this as a learning experience. The time doesn't mean much to me since I work 10 hours a week. Yeah, if you calculated how much time I've spent on this and then calculated it out based on my salary it'd be really bad, but I have my job because it gives me the freedom to screw around with something like this if I feel like it.

Again, I have a good chunk of the data safe and sound, but it's looking more and more like the drive is perfectly fine, it's just marked off the final 25 GB or so as bad, and nothing can access it. HDD Regenerator is still going strong, but it's so slow it's painful. Reading around on the web it looks like most people who had success with it had a couple of bad blocks, maybe a few hundred, so it wasn't so bad. I'm looking at 50 million bad sectors! Of course it's possible that most of the sectors have nothing in them - the drive had about 19 GB free and I'd expect that to be at the end of the drive. But files could be fragmented all over the place . . .