[nmglug] drive problems

[BrianO'Keefe]

thanks for the reply Nick.

Nick Frost wrote:
> BrianO'Keefe wrote:
>> Hi all.
>> Some of you may remember my firewire drive saga. It's still ongoing but
>> I may have figured something out.
>
> There is either physical damage to the drive (bad sectors on platter,
> controller, bad cache) and/or logical damage to the file system.
>
> I second the "drive too full" isn't likely the problem, though I have
> seen one instance where a full HFS+ partition resulted in some pretty
> extensive logical damage to that HFS+ file system.  Theoretically
> since HFS+ is a journaling file system this is not supposed to happen.
>
> Have you run the disk manufacturer's diagnostics on the drive? 

> Are you saying that I should have a cd somewhere that came with the
> drive for diagnosis? If so I will have to search for it as I don't
> remember one. It may be somewhere around here.

> If you are getting I/O errors that sounds like either bad sectors or
> incipient drive failure to me, unless those errors are caused by
> severe logical damage to the HFS+ file system and/or partition.
> Question: are you getting I/O errors only when trying to access the
> unreadable partition or when accessing the other two?
Only when accessing the one partition. the others are fine. Also, no
noise when running to indicate mechanical failure.

>
> If Dot Foil could not recover any data, then chances are that the data
> on the partition is sufficiently damaged as to prevent recovery by
> normal means.
>
> If I/O errors result in accessing that partition and there is reason
> to believe that the drive may be failing and/or have bad sectors,
> $1,500 to $2,000 spent at Ontrack.com or DriveSavers might be your
> only option. However, that money is best spent only when you have a
> drive that has failed manufacturers diagnostics, is known to have bad
> sectors, or won't spin up.
I got a quote from Data Sniffers for $500. I asked them what the diff
was between them and DriveSavers to warrant such a priceand they said
DriveSavers overcharges. Any input?
>
> I would suggest trying to determine if the drive has hardware problems
> or bad sectors (manufacturer's diagnostics).
>
> If it were me and it were possible to clone the partition to another
> drive without too many I/O errors, I would start there rather than
> perform such operations on an original data set with no backups (that
> way you have something to go back to if things go awry).
What cloning software do you recommend? I have ddrescue but the man
pages statethat it should not be used in the case of I/O errors (I know
it's not a cloning tool).
>
> -Nick
> ----------------------------
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> Nicholas S. Frost
> 7 Avenida Vista Grande #325
> Santa Fe, NM  87508
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