In the first place I have sent my external HDD to the data-recovery specialist. Unfortunately the recovery cost was estimated to be equal to the value of a new high performance computer.
Paying this much is beyond my reach, therefor I have to ask; is there anyone willing to guide me through the process of data recovery?
Spec:
OS: Debian 9 -rc 3 / Windows 8.1 home
HDD: WD My Passport ultra 2.0 TB 3.0 USB
HDD file-system: NTFS
Specialist's diagnosis:
- Damaged disk service area.
- Damaged disk surface.
- Due to the surface damage, disk enters emergency mode.
- Damaged disk head is suspected but not confirmed.
Suggested course of action:
- In order to access the disk's firmware, one should solder into
disk's electronics. - Then disk's service area should be repaired.
- Then get the disk out of the emergency mode.
- Then make sector copy of the disk.
- Then check the consistency and correctness of the record.
How did it happen:
While in the process of copying some data, to the external HDD, my OS froze.
When the OS came back to normal I was unable to write or read any data from the disk, any attempt would result in an I/O Error. After I rebooted the OS I was unable to mount the drive.
I can't understand how this simple event, could cause so tremendous damage...
Any explanation will be appreciated! (I have to understand what went wrong)
My doubts:
After my disk was diagnosed, I consulted the results with competitive data-recovery specialists (simple chat via a phone). And most of them told me that this diagnosis is not accurate... Because out of 5 possible things that could break in any hard drive, my hard drive have been diagnosed with 4 of them and that is a bit suspicious...
- I don't believe that disk head is damaged.
- I believe that there is a way to repair disk's service area with out
welding into disk's electronics. - I believe it is possible to boot the disk into normal mode without interfering with the hardware.
For the sake of my data, i have to assume that the diagnosis was correct...
Additional info:
My disk can not be mounted. It does not appear under /dev/sd*/, but it can be found with lsusb
Disk is clicking once per 2 or 3 minutes... I find it strange. I was unable to find out the meaning of this behavior. I think its related to the driver initialization failure.
Very important update:
I plugged in this external HDD and to my surprise it mounted. I was also able to see file system, and copy single most important project. After that disk failed again... I pushed my luck a bit, but now i know for sure that disk surface is OK (there was no I/O Errors) and the head is OK (or at least it was OK).
For now I put the HDD on the shelf. But since my data are not corrupted, what should be the next step? What should I do to get all of my data back?
Update #2:
Now I am facing an inaccessible HDD error.
Disk is being mounted under /media/ upon plugging in. It takes a while to mount.
When I try to open the HDD at the GUI level I am getting Unable to access My Passport: an operation is already pending error.
When I try to access it via console i get:
patryk@debian-pc:~$ cd /media/patryk/My\ Passport/
cd: permission denied
patryk@debian-pc:~$ ls -la /media/patryk/My\ Passport/
ls -la: permission denied
patryk@debian-pc:~$ sudo ls -la /media/patryk/My\ Passport/
drwxrwxrwx 1 patryk patryk 4096 May 20 16:18 .
drwxr-x---+ 3 root root 4096 May 27 00:30 ..
But this HDD is periodically coming back to life !!! Once every ~10 hours it will mount without any problem. I will be able to copy a single (text-like) file and then it fails again.
Right now I do not understand what could be the cause of this behavior, therefore i am trying to learn as much as I can.
Also I have found my old HDD and to my surprise it is still working (it reports I/O Errors from time to time). I am testing suggested methods on this HDD in order make myself familiar with them, and in order to reduce the chance of my error.
I will keep this Question updated with every piece of news. In mean while i could use an advice;
- what do you think is the cause of this behavior? (Disk is coming back to
life once every 10 or so hours?) - Is is a good idea to run
ddrescue(or others recommended programs) on this disk, while it is in the state ofinaccessibility? I am asking this Because i am sure that the disk will become inaccessible right after i will start the data recovery process.
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