Seagate Known Bad Drive - Level 2 recovery recommendations

[BP9906]

I've got this Seagate drive. I know it is messed up but the drive broke like 10 years ago and never got around to running Spin Rite. Running Spin Rite 6.1 on it. I got from 0-1.2597, stopped and restarted the level 2 from 1.3 to 100 and it finished. I am now running 1.2597 - 1.3 level 2 and its really struggling.
Pictures attached. Would like advise how best to proceed.
My goal is to see whats on the drive, recover what I can, destroy/recycle the drive.

Trying to attach photos but getting 400 errors.

 

[BP9906]

photos

 

[DanR]

It sounds like there is/are unrecoverable sector(s) at 1.2597%. And the data there is lost.

I would suggest the following command line: spinrite level 2 dynastat 0
From 1.0% to 1.4% to straddle the bad sector area.

This will do one normal read per sector. If/when that fails, it will write all 0's to the sector. If/when that fails, the drive firmware should reallocate the bad sector taking it permanently out of service. When done the drive ought to be readable so desired files can be copied off (with the exception of the file(s) occupying the bad sectors).

When you are done the drive should be considered toast.

Edit: Should be Level 2!!!

 

[peterblaise]

I always remove the circuit card and clean the inner contacts first -
Q-tips and rubbing alcohol will do.

- - - - -

Then, I've had luck with:

SPINRITE NORAMTEST SKIPVERIFY LEVEL 2 DYNASTAT 0 NOREWRITE

... over and over, end to end.

Power cycle in between runs if necessary.

For me, it moved on from wonky sectors, leaving them to fight over
another day, but did "fix" some "minor" stuff on the way.

After many repeats of that SPINRITE command line, letting it run
end-to-end, eventually, things became recoverable.

If the unreadable sectors are part of the file allocation tables, and or
directories, recovery may be messy unless those sectors are brought
back to readability.

Patience, diligence, persistence.

Let us know what you do and how it goes.

 

[BP9906]

Just a status update. Ran end to end with

SPINRITE NORAMTEST SKIPVERIFY LEVEL 2 DYNASTAT 0 NOREWRITE

Ran through reasonably. 2 U’s

 

[peterblaise]

status update. Ran end to end with ​

SPINRITE NORAMTEST SKIPVERIFY LEVEL 2 DYNASTAT 0 NOREWRITE​

Ran through reasonably. 2 U’s​

I see that those 2 Us represent 57 uncorrectable sectors.

I wonder if they will "heal" on repeated runs of that Spinrite
command line.

I see there was "only" 1 "fix minor errors".

Huh.

I've had tons, endlessly, and more on each successive run.

I wonder how successive runs will report any changes in
uncorrectable and fix minor errors for you.

My batch file runs ReadSpeed in between SpinRite runs, to sort of
reset the drive.

Then immediately runs the same Spinrite command line again -
essentially the batch file calls itself over and over while I went away:

SRRSrept.bat​

​

RS​

SPINRITE NORAMTEST SKIPVERIFY LEVEL 2 DYNASTAT 0 NOREWRITE BIOS 81 0.0 100.0 AUTO​

SRRSrept.bat​

See @ColbyBouma's terrific SpinRite Command Line reference:

https://gitlab.com/GRC-Community/spinrite-6.1-wiki/-/wikis/Command-Line

The TIME from end to end got shorter with each re-run, giving me
hope that eventually, all the data I wanted would make itself available.

I ran my test for 2 weeks, starting at only 2 runs making it through per
day, ending up going as fast as 4 runs per day, and getting quicker
( see - improvement ! ), worked for me.

Then multiple ddrescue sessions to a clone drive, each successive run
getting only the skipped sectors from previous runs.

- - - - -

What's your plan - have you got what you are after yet?

 

[BP9906]

Claude summarizes as
The bad sectors are all in two tight clusters:

1.2596% – 1.2614% (around sectors 49.2M–49.3M)

1.7730% – 1.7764% (around sectors 69.3M–69.4M)

The logs first run show mostly “ could not be completely recovered”, the last one said once about the minor area recovered. (See below)

It feels like the log errors are getting smaller, but the really troublesome areas. I don’t think I’m ever gonna get back. The drive was dropped off the desk while doing a back up years ago.


Sector 69,408,352 (1.7764%) This sector could not be completely |
| recovered and 'NoRewrite' prevents its partial recovery and/or repair. |
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Sector 69,408,353 (1.7764%) After a minor problem reading this sector |
| occurred and a repeated attempt succeeded, this sector has been |
| re-written.

 

[DanR]

It feels like the log errors are getting smaller, but the really troublesome areas. I don’t think I’m ever gonna get back. The drive was dropped off the desk while doing a back up years ago.

I would agree. That drop damaged it.

NOTE: In my previous post (now corrected) I inadvertently specified level 1. I meant to say level 2.

 

[peterblaise]

The drive was dropped off the desk while doing a back up​

You're just burnishing the divots now.

The data is probably dust in the drive's air filter.

Retrieve whatever you can, reconstruct whatever you can, copy out
whatever you can, then secure erase and or

SPINRITE NORAMTEST SKIPVERIFY LEVEL 2 DYNASTAT 0​

If that works, then try

SPINRITE NORAMTEST SKIPVERIFY LEVEL 5 DYNASTAT 0​

If that works, then you have a workable drive.

Just don't use it as the ONLY copy of any data - we will always worry
about it.

 

[BP9906]

I did `SPINRITE NORAMTEST SKIPVERIFY LEVEL 2 DYNASTAT 0` on the 2 percentage ranges and then ran ddrescue.

`caffeinate -i sudo ddrescue -r3 /dev/disk5 /Volumes/NewDrive/DriveRestore/seagate_recovery.img ~/Downloads/seagate_recovery.log`

I then ran: `hdiutil attach seagate_recovery.img` (MacOS)
hdiutil: attach failed - no mountable file systems

Went down a rabbit hole of using testdisk to try to identify partitions.
I have vague memory on what I had on the drive. It seems to think I had 2 partitions. One Fat32 or NTFS (small amount) and one HFS+ for MacOS.

I didnt commit anything with testdisk and Claude is telling me to use diskdrill.com to attempt to see what it thinks about it.

Wondering if y'all have been down this rabbit hole?

 

[peterblaise]

y'all have been down this rabbit hole?​

Only on CLONE copies of the original drive, so I can try different
approaches over and over, then make another CLONE and try again.

The CLONE usually has no partition or file allocation table, but just a
pile of raw files findable by ANY data recovery software that I "save"
to my own new \Documents directory elsewhere on yet another drive.

Like picking up a 3-ring binder that fell open on the floor, the contents
scattered, but with erased pages, too.

Fun, eh?

Thanks for keeping us informed.