Trying to rescue a hard disk -- weired feedback??

[John Summerfield]

William Case wrote:
> Hi;
> 
> I have a hard disk that seems broken but I am trying to save -- or at
> least save the data on it.  
> 
> The broken hard disk is a dual boot SCSI disk that worked.
>       * BIOS says that the disk is present and accounted for i.e. right
>         name and size even after swapping in and out other harddisks.

Means the electrical and electronic bits appear to work. I don't know 
that the motor has to spin up for this to pass.


>       * Using Fedora rescue disk, parted /dev/sda says can't read sda.
>       * Using Fedora rescue disk, fdisk /dev/sda says can't read sda.
>       * Using Fedora rescue disk, chroot /mnt/sysimage can't mount
>         sysimage.

That's one test three times. No surprise that, when the first fails the 
others do too. It's likely to be a catastrophic such as motor speed not 
up to par, rw head don't move (I'm only speculating, I presume these 
things can happen).

>       * fdisk /mbr says can't fix mbr.  ( I am not sure whether this
>         message means that nothing is wrong with the mbr or that it is
>         beyond repair )

I didn't think fdisk on Fedora supported such a thing.


> 
> I would like to do any of the following:
>       * get the hard disk working again, or,
>       * view the data on the disk, and/or,
>       * rescue the data on the disk.
> 
> What should I try next?

1. Try knoppix. I am not optimistic though.
2. Engage expensive data recovery experts.

I think the disk is bin-fodder.




-- 

Cheers
John

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