lost all my data!!!!!!!

[Cochise]

I can find no words to express my feelings now.

All the data I was working on, all the works in progress, recordings, patches, instruments set, HDDs images, ALL IS GONE!

Since I splitted my RAID 0 array in 2006, I used to store the data on the DAW HDD and a backup copy on an external HDD.
I use to store HDDs images of different machines as well as the installation CD of various applications in order to have them quickly available and quickly running in case of need. Since I use Sync Toy to synchronize the backup copy from time to time, the external HDD was full.
I was planning to delete this kind of stuff from the backup HDD to make room, at the next backup time.
Last week my brother said to me he was in feeling his HDD was going bad and he had no backup copy of all the pictures and data stored, asking for some advice about backup solutions.
I formatted and gave him my backup HDD as a quick solution. The data HDD on my DAW was brand new, spinning since less than four months and I wasn't afraid to remain without backups for a couple of days, just the time to buy and install a new drive.
I bought a Barracuda 7200.11 500GB, then I tested, partitioned and formatted it (on my 2nd machine, to stay safe).
I had given to my brother the external HDD enclosure toghether with the old drive, so I went to connect the new drive inside the DAW in order to copy the data.
Just after inserting and plugging the drive, at boot time the machine had a crash with blue screen during XP startup (too fast to read anything, it turned all black after few frames), then the OS/data disk was dead. No longer recognized by the BIOS.
The drive is spinning and ordinary noises come from it, but there's no way to access the data.
Data recovery softwares recognize it as physical unit but report his size as 0 byte and no logical disks.

The drive is under warranty, but data recovery services have prohibitive costs to me.

I'm pratically in despair. Still I can't understand how it happened.

[Immanuel]

Man, that's just plain sad

I am not sure, if you have tried this, as I am not 100%, that I understand the procedures in the last part of your post. But maybe you could put the drive into another PC and see, if you can retrieve it from there?

Best of luck with restoring your data somehow.

[kensuguro]

get a live linux CD, boot from it and see what parted (like linux fdisk) can see. But if your bios can't see it, I do wonder. Chances are, if it's spinning and it sounds normal, the stuff might still be there. I'm pretty sure magnetically it's still all there. Anyway, a linux CD is very helpful for these things when your primary os goes down.

That's the thing with big harddisks.. becoming big is okay, but since these things are consumables, they're destined to fail. And yet they get bigger and bigger, and your risk just gets bigger and bigger.

[braincell]

A lot of people in this situation can recover the data with Spinrite:

http://www.grc.com/intro.htm

[Cochise]

Thx Immanuel.
Unluckily I tried everything I can without results.

Ken, I will try by Linux live CD, but all the other tries I made leave me very few hopes:
- Seatools for Dos report that a SMART trip has occourred; when I launch the acoustic test the app freeze.
- When I connect the drive externally via USB the system recognize the USB device as a disk, but can't assign it a letter as a logical drive.
- I used HDD Tune to try to read SMART data; it recognize the physical unit, but crashes when I select it.
- Drive Rescue and the Seagate recovery tool demo recognize the phisical disk as a 0 byte unit having no logical disks.


The PSU instructions say it's adviced to avoid connecting more than two unit x chords.
I connected the new 500 GB unit on the same PSU chord with the 320 GB that has gone, but they are both low absorbption last generation disk... the 320 is even a single plate unit, they state it absorb more than 40% less than the previous version... and the PSU is brand new; moreover, the 500 GB drive and all the DAW are still working fine...
=ADDED= apart from all, the electronic is not connected to the +12V line..

Ken, do you think is it possible to try to re-flash the firmware in the faulty drive?

[Cochise]

A lot of people in this situation can recover the data with Spinrite:

http://www.grc.com/intro.htm

Thx braincell, I'll have a look and a try.

[braincell]

Let me know if it works and I will buy it too. I hear it's an amazing program.

[Cochise]

Just made other tests.
LBA blocks can't be accessed.
I don't think I'll buy any recover software, cause I'm sure the fault isn't due to a file allocation table or partition table corruption issue.
I'm quite sure it's kind of electronic or firmware flash fault.

You could try Drive Rescue, braincell. It's free and it saved my data one time in the past when I had a partition table corruption by an old 800 MB drive that was going bad. It's a dated software but I'm running it now under XP, and looks like it works good with NTFS and SATA drives...

[Cochise]

It's a heavy blow, really.

I feel like I wanna start a new life now. Plastic surgery at my face, move to different country and then begin again

[braincell]

I would a least email Steve about it. If he has time to read email, I am sure he would know if Spinrite could fix it. He's a decent guy. It takes 24 hours sometimes to work. This is very sophisticated software. It's not the same as other data recovery software. Did you read the testimonials? Some people use the cracked version and pay him if it works. He isn't upset about that. He laughs when that happens.

[Cochise]

As far as I remember the partition table contains the address of the partitions.
In the FileAllocationTable the initial address of files is stored; cause of ordinary files deletions, files data often are not contiguous, but every fragment should contain the address of the next one.

Afaik recovery softwares take lot of time since they read raw data written on the LBA blocks without using any initial address. Since the software 'knows' the rules of the file system, it can rebuild files and directories structure even if allocation tables and their copies are damaged.

=Added= The second assertion above is most probably wrong.
Without any suitable FAT, is most likely that recovery softwares can just try to rebuild widely spread file types.

The crashes and freezes some software has when try to access my faulty drive let me think that wrong, unexpected data are returned back when the disk is accessed; kind of anyone asking to another: 'ehi, what's there?' and having for response: 'sh*t! f*ck off!'.
The drive didn't even return any longer the total value of the raw LBA blocks; it's 0 byte for the routines that succeed accessing it.

[kensuguro]

does the bios recognize the drive being the correct size? If it's not recognized at the bios level, it seems like the deal is very tough. Only point of failure beyond that point would be hardware firmware troubles, or some sort of hardware failure.

Actually, does anyone know if it is possible to have a working drive that isn't recognized by bios correctly? The only exception I can think of is linux, because it can detect drives that are disabled through bios. (maybe others can too?)

Also, you checked all cables secured and tight right? Or maybe just replug them to make sure the contact is good. Sorry if these suggestions sound dumb. It's just strange that the hdd would just break upon adding a new hdd.

[Gordon Gekko]

HI Cochise, sorry to hear that. Did you check the jumper(s) on the drive? something like what you see happened here once and it was a result of a bad master/slave config. I think it was a slave being used as master

good luck

[Cochise]

Ken, the P5GDC BIOS takes lot of time at POST, detecting the drive, then beeps an error: HDD failure. Entering the setup, the disk label is listed (but the last 3 digits are spaced from the initial string ); the size reprted is 0.

I checked the contacts. At now the drive is inside a USB e-SATA enclosure.

Thx Gordon. It's a SATA disk; no master/slave any longer; the only jumper sets the interface speed: 150/300 MB/s for SATA 1 compatibility.

[Cochise]

Ken, I'm wondering if the earlier version of your 73 mod patch is still available for download.
I lost it too between the other things.

[Immanuel]

Did you do a slow or a fast format before handing your back-up drive to your brother. If you did a fast one (not overwriting the entire disc), then some data might still be there to extract with the right software.

[kensuguro]

hmm, what's happening to your hd is quite puzzling. If the BIOS can't see it right, it's got to be something very basic.. perhaps it is something hardware.

I just uploaded the seventythree patch here:
http://www.kensuguro.com/seventythree.zip

[the19thbear]

.. i have no idea if this would work, but couldnt you buy the exact same model harddrive, open it up, replace disks?? ( i assume the files are still on the drive, and that it is something electronic with the driveinterface that is messed up..??)
I know its not as easy as it sounds, but maybe you can get someone to do it for you?

[Cochise]

Thank you very much Ken. I've found your patch a great synth emulation and very useful.

As for opening the disk, I absolutely don't think it's a good idea. Just a single grain of dust inside can bring damages. Usually there's very little space between heads and plates.

Immanuel, the disk I gave to my brother was repartitioned and formatted, then it has new data written on.
I said to my brother to avoid to use it any longer, and I'll have a peek inside, but I believe there are very few chance I can retrieve anything from there.

Since the P5GDC displays the drive in the BIOS, there's a screenshot (I took my brother camera, since mine is bad). The drive is connected as SATA, this time, so it's reported in the HDDs list.

[Immanuel]

Partitioning in itself only changes the partition table on the disc. Formating can be done in two ways. As I understand it, the fast one only deletes the file structure thing, so the data are not registered on the drive anymore - but retrieveable with the right software. The slow formating procedure actually overwrites the disc/partition with zeros.