media refused to be written and re-read

[RackoWacko]

Hitachi SATA drive in my old hp laptop shows Hard Disk Short DST: FAILED from the built-in hp diagnostics.
The laptop will not boot. Just a black screen when powered on. Then usually overheats and shuts down.

Therefore I am running Spinrite to see if it will help. I have the drive out of the laptop and connected to a different laptop.
SpinRite running from USB flash drive.

After at least 36 hours, I only see this example two SpinRite detailed technical log for each sector.
Do these messages mean I should give up on this hard drive?
Should I wait for SpinRite to finish in several days and then re-install my hard drive and try it again?

Sector 410,173 (0.0279%) Despite many attempts, this sector of the media refused to be written and re-read.
Sector 410,173 (0.0279%) was found but, despite SinRite's every effort, none of its data could ever be recovered.

 

[DanR]

@RackoWacko

Respectfully, more information is needed.

Are you running SpinRite 6.1? 6.0?

At what Level? 2? 3? Or?

Size of hard drive?

 

[peterblaise]

@RackoWacko wrote "... Hitachi SATA drive in my old hp laptop shows Hard Disk Short DST: FAILED from the built-in hp diagnostics. The laptop will not boot. Just a black screen when powered on. Then usually overheats and shuts down. Therefore I am running Spinrite to see if it will help. I have the drive out of the laptop and connected to a different laptop. SpinRite running from USB flash drive. After at least 36 hours, I only see this example two SpinRite detailed technical log for each sector. o these messages mean I should give up on this hard drive? Should I wait for SpinRite to finish in several days and then re-install my hard drive and try it again? Sector 410,173 (0.0279%) Despite many attempts, this sector of the media refused to be written and re-read. Sector 410,173 (0.0279%) was found but, despite SinRite's every effort, none of its data could ever be recovered ..."​

- - - - -

Great sharing of messages.

It looks like track 0-ish is hurt, or the drive thinks it is.

FIRST, clean the contacts between the circuit card and the drive by removing the circuit card ( probably 7T Torx screws ) and cleaning the inner contacts with cotton-swab and alcohol ( or if significantly stubborn corrosion, a little kitchen cleanser powder, I use Bar Keeper's Friend ):

- - - - -

Make sure to download the current SpinRite version at https://www.grc.com/upgrade.htm

- - - - -

If the data is not critical, you can bulldoze through it by turning off SpinRite recovery

SPINRITE DYNASTAT 0 LEVEL 2​

... or reducing the time SpinRite spends trying to recover, in the hopes of saving some data, if possible:

SPINRITE DYNASTAT 1 LEVEL 2​

Alternatively, you can start deeper into the drive to check if the rest of the drive beyond track 0-ish is OK:

SPINRITE DYNASTAT 1 LEVEL 2 BIOS 81 10 100​

... tests from 10% to 100% on the 2nd drive, the first drive past the boot drive, which is the USB drive at BIOS 80, presumably, or:

SPINRITE DYNASTAT 1 LEVEL 2 BIOS 81 #1234567 #12345678910​

​

... start and end sector numbers - depends on the size of the drive, my examples are rather random, but #1000000 may be sufficient to start past the damage.

@ColbyBouma has a terrific reference: https://gitlab.com/GRC-Community/spinrite-6.1-wiki/-/wikis/Command-Line

Keep the drive cool now and, and if recovered, keep it cool when inside the laptop again - supplemental cooling fans are drive life savers.

If the whole drive is as bad as the the 0% area, then the heads or circuit card may be bad altogether, or a platter has become physically corrupt.

Let us know what you do and how it goes.

.

 

[RackoWacko]

@RackoWacko

Respectfully, more information is needed.

Are you running SpinRite 6.1? 6.0?

At what Level? 2? 3? Or?

Size of hard drive?

@DanR SpinRite 6.1, Level 2 (trying to get my wife's un-backed-up data). The hd is 750mb. Thank you for your time.

 

[RackoWacko]

@RackoWacko wrote "... Hitachi SATA drive in my old hp laptop shows Hard Disk Short DST: FAILED from the built-in hp diagnostics. The laptop will not boot. Just a black screen when powered on. Then usually overheats and shuts down. Therefore I am running Spinrite to see if it will help. I have the drive out of the laptop and connected to a different laptop. SpinRite running from USB flash drive. After at least 36 hours, I only see this example two SpinRite detailed technical log for each sector. o these messages mean I should give up on this hard drive? Should I wait for SpinRite to finish in several days and then re-install my hard drive and try it again? Sector 410,173 (0.0279%) Despite many attempts, this sector of the media refused to be written and re-read. Sector 410,173 (0.0279%) was found but, despite SinRite's every effort, none of its data could ever be recovered ..."​

- - - - -

Great sharing of messages.

It looks like track 0-ish is hurt, or the drive thinks it is.

FIRST, clean the contacts between the circuit card and the drive by removing the circuit card ( probably 7T Torx screws ) and cleaning the inner contacts with cotton-swab and alcohol ( or if significantly stubborn corrosion, a little kitchen cleanser powder, I use Bar Keeper's Friend ):

View attachment 1547

- - - - -

Make sure to download the current SpinRite version at https://www.grc.com/upgrade.htm

- - - - -

If the data is not critical, you can bulldoze through it by turning off SpinRite recovery

SPINRITE DYNASTAT 0 LEVEL 2​

... or reducing the time SpinRite spends trying to recover, in the hopes of saving some data, if possible:

SPINRITE DYNASTAT 1 LEVEL 2​

Alternatively, you can start deeper into the drive to check if the rest of the drive beyond track 0-ish is OK:

SPINRITE DYNASTAT 1 LEVEL 2 BIOS 81 10 100​

... tests from 10% to 100% on the 2nd drive, the first drive past the boot drive, which is the USB drive at BIOS 80, presumably, or:

SPINRITE DYNASTAT 1 LEVEL 2 BIOS 81 #1234567 #12345678910​

​

... start and end sector numbers - depends on the size of the drive, my examples are rather random, but #1000000 may be sufficient to start past the damage.

@ColbyBouma has a terrific reference: https://gitlab.com/GRC-Community/spinrite-6.1-wiki/-/wikis/Command-Line

Keep the drive cool now and, and if recovered, keep it cool when inside the laptop again - supplemental cooling fans are drive life savers.

If the whole drive is as bad as the the 0% area, then the heads or circuit card may be bad altogether, or a platter has become physically corrupt.

Let us know what you do and how it goes.

.

@peterblaise Thank you for all this info. I'm glad I have more things to try. My original post should have included: SpinRite 6.1, Level 2 (trying to get my wife's un-backed-up data). The hd is 750mb. Thank you for your brain-power and time.

 

[DanR]

SpinRite 6.1, Level 2 (trying to get my wife's un-backed-up data). The hd is 750mb. Thank you for your time.

Ah . . . . Good. Level 2 is the least aggressive for data recovery for troubled drives, as your drive appears to be.

You might consider a level 1 scan for information only. L1 does no data recovery or writes, thus preserving data (except for what L2 may have already lost). It will do only a normal read for each sector and produce a list in the log file when logging is ON, and map in the Graphic Status Display (GSD) screen of all (U)nreadable sectors.

A DynaStat 0 run (e.g. C:\>spinrite dynastat 0) will lose data but ought to trigger reallocation of all bad sectors. Perhaps allowing recovery of some data? In any case this drive should be considered unusable. I suspect this drive may be too far gone to recover data.

Using the ForceBIOS command line switch (e.g. C:\>spinrite dynastat 0 forcebios) would force SpinRite to work very slowly thru the BIOS for an even gentler data recovery approach.

 

[peterblaise]

@RackoWacko wrote "... SpinRite 6.1, Level 2 (trying to get my wife's un-backed-up data). The hd is 750mb. Thank you for your brain-power and time ..."​

I believe Windows is at the outer tracks, so loss of data there is no problem regarding recovery or your own stuff, so bulldoze on.

For your own data, preserve it if using NOREWRITE it can't be recovered by SpinRite, as in:

SPINRITE DYNASTAT 1 LEVEL 2 BIOS 81 10 100 NOREWRITE​

​

Then SpinRite will LEAVE an unrecoverable sector for you to try again another way, such as Linux ddrescue www.google.com/search?q=ddrescue

Though I find that even not using NOREWRITE, my files are OK, the occasional 'hit' is in inconsequential, such as in a replaceable program file, not my data - it's a toss up.

 

[Tazz]

Additionally, you could make SpinRite start at a location that might be past the ’bad spot(s)’. Start at the 1% or 10% mark and let it run. If there’s problems there maybe start at the 50% mark.

You may be able to get to a section of the disk that needs little to no recovery action and be able to scan large sections then try accessing your data. If it’s still not letting you then go back and tackle the problem spots near the beginning of the disk.
It *may* save some time.

Select the disk to work on with the space bar and press “Enter”. On the next screen press “TAB” to be able to set the starting and finishing points.

 

[jlee]

Hitachi SATA drive in my old hp laptop shows Hard Disk Short DST: FAILED from the built-in hp diagnostics.
The laptop will not boot. Just a black screen when powered on. Then usually overheats and shuts down.

Well, you can try what others have suggested, but the message

Hard Disk Short DST: FAILED

(DST = "drive self-test")

probably means there's something wrong with the drive at a basic hardware level. The short drive self-test (a routine run by the firmware on the drive at the request of the host) doesn't involve a lot of media access. The fact that it failed probably means it's not the media that's your problem, but something else more basic.

If it's not a media problem, SpinRite's ability to help you get your data back will be very limited.