We have had GREAT Success with these tools. Ther are OpenSource FREE. Give them a try and se if they won't do the trick 4 U.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

TestDisk is OpenSource software and is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL v2+).

TestDisk is powerful free data recovery software! It was primarily designed to help recover lost partitions and/or make non-booting disks bootable again when these symptoms are caused by faulty software: certain types of viruses or human error (such as accidentally deleting a Partition Table). Partition table recovery using TestDisk is really easy.

We hope this help U as it did 4 Us. *yes*

 

Yes, it was a cryptic detour to say that I think you should do what you can to clone. LOL

 

Thanks Boom.Thanks mates!!!Maybe this won't help me now but I will definitely be Backing up all my Data immediately.Do it now 'cause from my experience you will have a minimum of $1500-2000 just to retrieve your stuff.Add to this the cost of a Hard drive and loss of work/time etc etc.When you hear a grinding noise/whining sound or a continuous clicking its time to stop the disk ,get a new one and copy/backup everything b'coz you never know.

 

Thanks boom and everyone for all your valuable suggestions.Will try not to make the same mistake again!!!

 

LOL!

Im laughing coz still I haven't faced the reality ! ( at least I know something can be done!)

 

Western Digital have a habit of using Caviar Green drives in their externals, which aren't the most reliable of drives and have quite high failure rates due to the parking mechanism being activated after only 8 seconds which creates massive amounts of load/unload cycles. This isn't so much a problem if the drives are used simply as backup/storage drives but if used as high traffic drives, reading and writing a lot, this can cause an awful lot of wear on the mechanism and potential failure. I lost one of these drives after only three months due to mechanical failure earlier in the year. It simply stopped reading altogether and was playing the ominous click of death march. I stripped it down (NOT recommended without a clean room ) as I have had a read arm get stuck in the past which can be repairable, (I fixed that drive successfully by manually re-parking the read arm and remarkably is still functioning perfectly ten years later - although I now only use it as a temp drive to transport data around) only to find that there had been a serious head crash and therefore was totally irreparable. When they go down like that, they go down fast and without warning so chances are that your drive doesn't have a mechanical error...hopefully. That said, if it's bad sectors they can also multiply rapidly and cause disk failure, particularly if the MFT or MBR is damaged in the process. So as previous advice states, don't switch the drive on until you are able to clone it to a new drive. Then follow the only known method of data security and BACKUP anything that you consider important and then BACK IT UP again in case your backup fails! *yes*

 

I had the exact same issue. Sounded funny, though

 

Rolma keep us updated. If you're cloning you can use Acronis True Image Home but there are a lot of other programs as well. Make the Knoppix disc on a friend's computer, it will come in handy some day. Here's a quick video on how to go about cloning your drive in Acronis:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oZwa6RDABk​

 

@HAZE, very interesting remark!

so then what brands do you suggest for extreme usage write and read all time? Pc side.

With the Mac I had different Lacie ones, kind of expensive - ppl say that you pay for the case etc but the truth is that I´ve found them very reliable along the years.
I mean those disks hold tons of Video and FXs projects,( I used to work within the project on the External HD ) and all it is there !
is there something comparable for Pc´s? or perhaps better with a budget...

@CT
I will , I will !
Here it´s the middle of the working week ( my work is in delay! - the bread of my table!)
Really in delay...Tell yah when I could have few hours to do what I have to do in calm !
Thanks CT :::: SEE YOU AROUND!

 

Yeah unfortunately it's actually a big problem on many contemporary drives that try to save power by parking the head. I can only see this making sense if you're using a laptop and power savings are important, on a desktop it's just a pain in the ass. Even if all goes well you still have the wait time as the drive becomes available to use every time you initialize it after a period of inactivity. Really many externals these days are quite simply crap, it's really become ridiculous. I recommend getting an enclosure, picking a solid internal and rolling your own. Then you also avoid any of the idiotic issues that are plaguing drives such as hardware encryption which can be quite problematic if your disk controller is fucked as is often the case after even modest usage, more a liability than anything else. I have on my task list to create a concise backup, cloning and data recovery thread. Nothing more upsetting than possibly losing important data but you're in good hands because many of us do this for a living so you're guaranteed to get some good advice. Coming soon. *yes*

 

It would make sense for a nas or something like this. Yet, I had it as an external data dump for movies and music, so really not as much spin-on-spin-off cycles as in a desktop disk.
Does anyone have a recommendation for a long-lasting harddisk? Back in the days I used IBM SCSI, but those tanks really are from yesteryear
So far, I have had mechanical crashes with seagate and wd (green). I heard wd red should be good...
Any hints?

 

Rolma, I use WD Caviar Black's internally and in a Direct Attached Storage system, though I have also had one of these go down last year all the others (8 in all) are still showing no problems. The truth is NO drives are 100% reliable and this is why a proper backup routine is absolutely essential. I believe that HGST Deskstar/Ultrastar (Formerly Hitachi, now bought and rebranded by WD) are amongst the most reliable drives around, though I have never used them personally.

Here is some of the best information available on HDD reliability.
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/what-hard-drive-should-i-buy/
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-update-september-2014/

 

Thank you Haze,
some mates in knowing my problem suddenly have started to be concerned with their workflows as well.
Im pretty sure that they will be interested in the links you are providing.

 

I second Haze's recommendation for Hitachi's line, I've seen some tests showing the failure rate is quite low and I've used them myself.

 

I'M ABOUT TO CRY
Im inside a weird behavior while using DDRESCUE!
The disk is gone for the normal world of Windows or Mac
Just visible on linux, but it seems that something, something that I cant understand prevents to run the most basic procedures for cloning inside DDrescue.
And all that is not due to I didn't receive direct support from forum members, on the contrary.

 

Rolma so why not start moving your sensitive data off to an external drive from Linux preferrably to a USB3 drive so it would transfer everything in the smallest time possible to prevent extra wear on the drive. If you need other help with any aspect of this then ask more questions, we're here to help.

 

Catalyst, thank you
I ve spent all Sunday with the disk, trying to clone it using ddrescue.
The command works but once the process has started the funny disk switches itself off now and then, so the cloning is impossible.
After several attempts the only thing i get is an .img file corrupted with no data on it.
A helpful member has suggested something as obscure to me as to check thoroughly for bad clusters/sectors to get the errors!
Well on this end, there is not such a power user; and not just that, on the surface of the things the disk is not seen on Windows; furthermore, I need Windows for daily work, so the pragmatism tells me that perhaps I should try to grab by hand few gb if I can, during my spare time.
My mood is very low atm. ill take a break.

 

So there is no way to get to your data before you try to clone the disk?

 

Yeah that was my point that Rolma missed. Connect a solid external to the system, boot up Linux and get transferring those files. You want to do that as soon as possible because you might not get a chance later. Forget about cloning for now, at least back up the data. I've done this before myself and was able to save a lot of important music, videos and documents. Give it a try.

 

fraifikmushi Im into a new cycle of tests and attempts to grab the data!
Im assisted by a kind member of this community who seems to know a lot about the stuff!
Catalyst this is on the table as well! I mean now I have to spend the nights with the disk, instead of fueling tuts as I planned earlier this autumn !
Im checking the health of the new disk, there are some concerns about the performance of the new WD! (yesterday someone failed miserably)
From now on I switch to Hitachi, that's fer sure.

In the meantime, during - the osculation or stress test for hds - Im going to watch the domestic politics, it seems that is very likely that soon o later we are about to face a major political confrontation, if not a worse thing.