0

I was trying repair an old Hitachi hard drive of mine with HDD Regenerator and plugged it in with a SATA to USB cable (shown in 1). But when I use HDD Regenerator and used the prescan option it proceeded up to 102MB, then it stopped with this error (shown in 2).

enter image description here

I'm running this in VMware Workstation because apparently HDD Regenerator causes problems for the hosts and the BIOS from the VM does not support changing form SATA to IDE.

My questions are:

  1. Is there any software that enables changing SATA to IDE live in the OS?
  2. Is there a way to emulate a external hard drive as an internal hard drive?
8
  • If you have access to another computer, @Z3R0_XP, try connecting this old HDD there as well and see if you will manage to get it repaired. If it's in an ext.enclosure, try taking it out as long as it's not covered by the warranty and plug it internally via SATA there. What exactly was the damage that you encountered with this drive? If the problem is physical/hardware-related, then you might be better off sending to a professional data recovery company for assistance with any important files from it.Either way, it won't be safe to store your data. What are the stats from the HDD's S.M.A.R.T.? Nov 4, 2016 at 11:05
  • It is connected to another computer (and a virtual machine) image:(i.stack.imgur.com/xbOKf.jpg) and there is no need for data recovery because there is no data
    – Z3R0_XP
    Nov 6, 2016 at 3:31
  • 1
    It looks like the HDD has quite the number of bad sectors! :( Unfortunately, Im not sure how successful your data retrieving attempts will be. Moreover, you need another HDD where you could transfer the data to. I'd also suggest you try connecting it internally, instead of using a SATA-to-USB cable when recovering files. I'd also suggest you consider using sector-by-sector data recovery instead. Still, if the files are very important to you, I'd definitely advise you again to turn to a professional data recovery company for assistance! Good luck! Nov 9, 2016 at 10:17
  • 1
    Unfortunately, @Z3R0_XP, bad sectors cannot be fixed. If an HDD has started degrading due to reallocated sectors (bad), it means that its health and SMART status will only get worse with time. You are lucky because you don't have to do any data recovery attempts, since there's nothing important. However, I'd still consider replacing the HDD altogether with a new one, if it's no longer covered by its manufacturer limited warranty. Good luck! Hope this was helpful. Nov 10, 2016 at 10:28
  • 1
    With that many bad sectors, @Z3R0_XP, I'd definitely stop trying. You would be better off buying a new hard drive. It's hard to say if this is solely a logical issue or you might also be facing physical/hardware damage on the drive. There are two types of bad sectors — one resulting from physical damage that CAN'T be repaired, and one resulting from software errors that can be fixed. Either way, I'd definitely not trust any data with this drive, even if you do manage to get them repaired somehow. A brand new HDD would definitely save you a lot of headaches. Good luck! :) Nov 14, 2016 at 11:20

2 Answers 2

1

Your harddisk has a real high amount of reallocated sectors (attributes 5 and 196).

Modern harddisks have a number of "spare" sectors they can use if a sector goes bad. They do that by reallocating the sector, which means they update an internal map that leaves the bad sector where it is, and uses one of the spare sectors instead.

The fact that this happened so often for your drive means that something is seriously wrong with your drive. You cannot "repair" it. If you keep using it, it will just continue to give you errors, and you'll loose data.

Throw it away and buy a new one.

0

If you want to benefit from the full power of Hdd regenerator you will have to run it at boot time and repair like that. So connect your HDD directly to a computer and make a bootable device with HDDR.

Running a repair via USB is NOT recommended at all.

8
  • But the problem is it can't boot from the bootable media it keeps on giving me an error that the ram disk can't be loaded
    – Z3R0_XP
    Nov 6, 2016 at 3:15
  • Try a different media or get Hiren's Bootable CD and run HDDR from there.
    – Overmind
    Nov 7, 2016 at 7:55
  • Hiren's bootable Cd removed HDDR
    – Z3R0_XP
    Nov 7, 2016 at 8:00
  • There are plenty of the old versions that have it.
    – Overmind
    Nov 7, 2016 at 8:35
  • yeah i also tried hirens' boot cd verion 9.08 which had HDDR it didn't boot and gave me the ramdisk error
    – Z3R0_XP
    Nov 7, 2016 at 10:42

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .