Help please: HDD failure with data loss!!!!

[nealh]

Ok..I know I should have backed it up...I was real stupid I even have a 120gb hdd in ext enclosure but I did make a recent backups in the 6mo...duh


Anyway...I have 2 160gb maxtor hdd..one boot , one an internal backup...I reinstalled winxp pro on the boot drive no issues....anyway today I was reinstalling stuff...burned a couple of dvd and got a write protect failure...file is corrupt...happened once..rebooted no problems ...rencoded a video and burned it and after the burner I get the write protect failure message..reboot and bios sees the drive ...winxp sees all the partitions but I get " Drive F: not accessible file or directory is corrupt or unreadable"...

I rebooted hoping to get some of the data moved...ha

Before yesterday..I got this error message once when flashing a firmware to a dvd burner in safe mode(the firmware file was on the HDD)..flashed ok and then after the flash a single directory was not available on a reboot it was gone....

There were no funny noises, clicks etc....seemed to come out of nowhere 2 days ago the drive was fine..I run no programs off this drive..."backup files, docs, photos" on it....

I have tried a brand new ATA100 cable....I ran it off my HPT ide3,4 channel and off ide 2..all as master

I tried to slave it to my main hdd with its ata133 cable but nothing

I did a search and saw people tried freezing there drives but I was not clear what problem they had...clicking noises or just no data

any help wopuld be appreciated....

 

[nealh]

ugh..any help for the morons like me out there

 

[Sqube]

I don't really know what to tell you... I know that putting my HD in the freezer (Western Digital 250 ATA-100) made it boot long enough for me to get stuff off of it.

Funny noises and clicks sound exceedingly bad, though. Depending on how much cash you've got available, you might want to consider professional data recovery services. Sorry I can't be of more help.

 

[invalidiuser]

Your kinda out of luck beside what Sqube said about professional help. I myself screwed up also. Accidently formatted 250gb of data and didn't do any recent backup for 6 months either. Luckily I was able to recover some stuff from 6 months ago from tape backup but the rest of the 6 missing month I lost. I hated doing backup because I only have a 35gb tape drive and it takes me 2 days to recovery everything.

I tried all the recoery software out there (Get data back, NTFS and Fat Recovery, etc....) but most of the stuff was corrupted after being recovered. Lost about 60gb of new data. I was pissed but I couldn't do anything about. I know what your going thru. I feel for ya just like I did myself 4 months ago.

 

[nealh]

The thing is there were no funny noises what so ever......nothing..everything seemed fine..got those writes failures after a use and boom now nothing.

the partitions are seen but I can not access the data.....When you "froze" the drive how long did you wait before trying it...

Unfortunately I am trying to get data recovery software but the Acronis recovery expert could not see the partitions winxp pro sees but can not access

Wonder how much money this would cost..maybe worth it?

thanks

 

[Sqube]

I froze it for a couple of hours. Professional data recovery is going to cost you crazy bank; from what I've seen, I'd be surprised if you saw under $100/hr.

 

[nealh]

holy crap $100/hr...Pretty last time i checked I do not make that much....:disgust:

Generally how long does it take ...$100- $200 maybe....but if it takes 3-5 hrs....not going to be worth it because I a msure there are no guarantees

I will try freeezing tomorrow and see if I get lucky enough to get my .doc and .jpg

Strangest thing I ever saw...no horrible noises that many report, no other symptoms....jeez

This was a Retail Maxtor 160gb I bought last July (just crap the retail drives which cost more get such BS warranties)....makes me wonder what the life of the other 160gb drive will be..looks like I am only buying Seagate

BTW invalidiuser thanks for the kind words...my wife on the other hand said no more dvd burns since that caused the HDD to fail..OMG:Q

 

[Lucifer Lost]

Originally posted by: nealh
Strangest thing I ever saw...no horrible noises that many report, no other symptoms....jeez

This was a Retail Maxtor 160gb I bought last July (just crap the retail drives which cost more get such BS warranties)....makes me wonder what the life of the other 160gb drive will be..looks like I am only buying Seagate

I think this drive has some real issues, my 160gb Maxtor just died recently as well, in much the same way yours appears to have "died."

I've done some looking around, and what I've found is that this drive may either have a problem with or be susceptible to a power issue that corrupts or erases the onboard firmware. In many cases, once it's done "dying" you'll be able to get the response "CALYPSO" in your HD autodetect when you boot up the computer. It seems like it might have been reset to a pre-firmware state at that point (Calypso is the name of the logic board on the drive, btw.)

The problem is this:

1) You can not fix this by just swapping out the logic board because there is a chip on the head assemblly that apparently holds the firmware.

2) Maxtor does NOT provide access to new firmware or a program to flash new firmware into the drive.


I've been able to track down the firmware, but right now, I have no way of flashing the drive. It think that in order to flash the drive I not only need a Maxtor firmware flasing program, but I'd also need to know what jumper setting to use to do it.

Why Maxtor doesn't make this information more public is beyond me. Especially on a product that only has a 1 year warranty and holds so much data. I know some people would probably end up screwing up perfectly good hardrives, but that's what disclaimers are for.

If anyone else has had any trouble with this Hard Drive (Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 160 GB), or has any more useful information, I (and others I'm sure) would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks.

 

[nealh]

Luicfer lost..does the bios and winxp still see your hard drive..see the funny thing is it recognized by winxp and the bios..in fact I ran ACR recovery software and got some of my lost data back...so I have no idea what the hell happened and I am not sure if the drive is toast and low format will allow reliable use..

I afraid to ever use this drive again

 

[Lucifer Lost]

Originally posted by: nealh
Luicfer lost..does the bios and winxp still see your hard drive..see the funny thing is it recognized by winxp and the bios..in fact I ran ACR recovery software and got some of my lost data back...so I have no idea what the hell happened and I am not sure if the drive is toast and low format will allow reliable use..

It did see the drive for a bit. Then I got a message that the drive needed to be formatted. Now, only the BIOS sees the drive as a blank MAXTOR CALYPSO. Which I surmise is a pre-firmware state.

I afraid to ever use this drive again

I'd suggest that you cut your losses. Salvage what you can first, and make sure you only put data on there that you're ok with losing from here on out if you get it working. I wouldn't trust the drive at this point. I've read about several people being able to low-level format and havving access for a few days or weeks before it poofed on them again. I'm guessing they did this before their firmware became completely corrupted.

 

[13black]

You could try "FDISK /MBR" it Rewrites the Master Boot Record. Or run checkdisk with the repair option enabled. chkdsk D: /F

 

[Squally Leonharty]

Next time try using a SMART monitoring utility. Most of the time it warns you early before the HDDs fail. Always handy. I use Active SMART, by the way. Nifty program.

 

[nealh]

well I think if you run chkdisck you can loss all the data...

where can I get ActiveSMART..never hurts for latter use...

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Lucifer Lost
It did see the drive for a bit. Then I got a message that the drive needed to be formatted. Now, only the BIOS sees the drive as a blank MAXTOR CALYPSO. Which I surmise is a pre-firmware state.

Not so much "pre-firmware", but ... it's loading the ROM-based failsafe boot code. Normally that code loads the second-stage firmware "modules" off of the disk platter itself. However.. if those get corrupted, then the drive can't finish booting itself, and thus, access to your data is lost, even though the actual data may be sitting on the platters in an ordinarily perfectly-readable state.

You need not only the replacement firmware, but a "loader" program too, I think, from what I've read about the problem. Do a search for "PC3000" and "Maxtor CALYPSO" and "Maxtor safe mode jumper". Maybe that will turn up the goodies that you need.