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

[John Summerfield]

William Case wrote:
> Thanks to everyone:
> 
> On Mon, 2008-01-14 at 07:42 +0900, John Summerfield wrote:
>> 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).
> 
> On one hand I think it is a busted, broken, dead disk, on the other hand
> it was working just recently and the data seems tantalizingly close.
> 
>>>       * 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.
>>
> It doesn't, but this disk was used to dual boot Fedora and WindowsXP.
> Thought I would see if rebuilding the mbr for/to the Windows partition
> would help find the various partitions.

Ah, so you've tried to read the drive under two different operating systems.

> 
> 
>>> 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.
> 
> Could very well be.  It is a friend's hard disk, not mine.
> 
> We have swapped disks in and out of two machines, tried so many
> permutations and combinations of disks, operating systems and roots that
> I have completely lost track by late tonight.  I am going to leave it
> until morning; start fresh and if I don't make any progress within a
> couple of hours then, quit.


Assuming that you've tried to read this drive in two different machines, 
  the only common thing left is the drive itself. Unless there's 
something else you haven't confessed to:-)


Oh, the gentle drop someone else mentioned is definitely worth a try. 
These things are supposed to withstand a shocking bump without any problems.

Another idea I've heard is to refrigerate the drive overnight, though I 
think that has better prospects if the drive fails when warm. Maybe an 
hour or so in the sun.





-- 

Cheers
John

-- spambait
1aaaaaaa at coco.merseine.nu  Z1aaaaaaa at coco.merseine.nu
-- Advice
http://webfoot.com/advice/email.top.php
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375

You cannot reply off-list:-)