I did one of these threads several months ago, when the site was new, and thought now was a good time to do another.

Message me if you

  • Want to try installing Linux for the first time
  • Want to try Linux but don't want to install it
  • Have some Linux-related problem you want another pair of eyeballs on
  • Want to learn a programming language
  • Want to build a computer
  • Want tutoring in any of the above
  • Need help with any old technical problem

(also play Arma with me)

  • Bloodshot [he/him,any]
    ·
    4 years ago

    I can't tell you whether the drive is recoverable or not with no other information. It's possible it responds to SATA commands but cannot read from sectors. It's possible that it's mostly fine but there are some bad sectors that prevent the filesystem from being recognised. It's possible the platters are completely destroyed.

    If there's data you care about, and if the drive is actually bad, I don't know of a better tool to recover drives than ddrescue, which works at a low level and will try its best to read every byte it can off a failing drive. It's also very slow, and you'll require a space big enough to put the data from the failing drive.

    As for the software side, if you're using Windows, I can't really help you. I haven't used Windows in a decade and don't really know how it works.

    • Neckbeard_Prime [they/them,he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Seconding DDRescue from a Linux LiveCD, preferably with an external USB hard drive to contain the backup image. Trying to read the drive under Windows is a great way to trash what's left of it, because Windows will keep thrashing on those bad sectors.

      Regarding Windows-based tools, Spinrite, the de facto Windows drive recovery, works by retrying a failed sector over and over and over again before moving on -- as in, it doesn't skip and return to failed sectors like DDRescue does. As a result, it tends to destroy a failing/damaged drive before it even recovers all of the salvageable data. Don't use Spinrite. Spinrite is terrible. Unless you have an old Maxtor DiamondMax ATA/100 with noisy bearings and you're trying to piss off the neighbors. It's pretty good for that. But not data recovery.