Hi,
I have a WD75DA 7.5GB HDD that the system boot says "no fixed disk
present".
The system (PIII - 64MB sdram - Win98SE) halted whilst transferring data.
I have tried <fdisk /mbr>and swapped the HDD into another machine.
CMOS auto-detect recognises the HDD yet the system boot says "primary hard
disk fail".
The HDD runs up fine and has never emitted any 'unusual drive noise'.
Assuming the HDD is shot, what processes can I investigate to recover some
of the files on this HDD?
(its principal purpose in my machine was as a storage for CD burning
archive data - I do need to recover the last 5 days of work)
I am thinking there has to be some low level software that will look at the
data and allow it to be copied?

Than You.

"Rod Speed" <rod_speed@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<bhbr5k$10g27m$1@ID-69072.news.uni-berlin.de>...
Such malfunction of the logic card is a very rare case. In this case
problems with HDD's system area are most probable. Some firmware
modules, which rewrite during work (SMART tables etc.). It can be
checked up by swapping the logic card.

Leonid

On Wed, 13 Aug 2003 08:53:52 +1000, "Rod Speed" <rod_speed@yahoo.com>
wrote:

Running Western Digitals "Lifeguard Diags" for drives under 137GB (EIDE).
Rebooting with Win98se DOS disk.

I have also obtained the later Ver. 10 of this diagnostic tool/s.
I have also written to WD,, buut from past experience I will not be holding
my breath waiting for a response (any).

Interestingly enough the BIOS will not boot beyond "primary hard disk fail"
until I tell the CMOS there is no HDD mounted. This remains the same for
either a DOS boot or using the LGDiags image boot disk.

DRFAT32 from the LG image boot, reports on booting A:\
"no valid FAT32 drive found".

The diagnostic returned Codes 0000 on both the "Quick Check" and "Extended
Check".
0000 is "no errors found".
This, after finding the drive and relaying its info.
The extended check did a type of "scandisk" taking about 5mins to complete.

If I have this right (?) the diagnostic is telling me there are no physical
errors on the drive , however the FAT is destroyed/unreadable.
Past experience has seen errors where there are two copies of the FAT seen
on a HDD boot with the WIndows DOS boot asking which the operator wants to
use -I always have gone for the default.
As this HDD is not even getting to the DMI update part of the BIOS boot
then I am having trouble getting my head around the obvious message that
the BIOS cannot read the drive table
(yet the architecture is seen in CMOS auto-detect)
and therefore fails to recognise the drive on booting.
This, I cannot understand.
Like, the BIOS has stuff all say in what FAT will be used on any HDD..yeh?
Also remembering I swapped this HDD out to another machine with a foreign
(to original) BIOS so how the heck can a FAT be universal to all BIOS..bets
me !

I am now convinced the HDD is more likely quite OK in respect of data
retention and physical order. Simply a matter of unlocking the door on the
boot sector.
Question is, How does one get the key? <g>

Care to speculate ? ;-)

Cheers

__________________________________________________ ____

feedback from LifeGuard Diags Tool

Mod # : WD75DA - 00AWA1
Ser # : WD - WMA1J1533560
Firmware Ver.: 07.21L07
C H S : 15520 15 63
Drive (0,1): 0 Port 0x01F0
DCM : DRBEQHB
Build Date : 24/08/00

--------------------------------------------

On 14 Aug 2003 03:27:54 -0700, Leo@softjoys.ru (Leo) wrote:

I appreciate you are responding to Rods input but for the benefit of one
who is not so in tune with the 'speak' could you expand your statements a
little please?
Maybe there is something there I can work with?

Thanks

"Leo" <Leo@softjoys.ru> wrote in message news:c05abcbe.0308140227.371f9899@posting.google.c om...
First it is the Maxtors that overwrite the reserved area and now
it is the Western Digitals? There must be a conspiricy going on!

ByteLess <ByteLess@the.heel> wrote in message
news:21cnjvotpqntnth3erkff9d862l8jpuufu@4ax.com...
Yeah, most likely they'll just say that since their diagnostic says
the drive is fine, that whatever appears to have scrambled the
data on the drive is nothing to do with them, even if they do reply.

They'd be right if thats what they say.

Yeah, in some situations there can be a real mess config
data wise and that can prevent the boot from happening.

Can you put the drive in another system as a slave
drive ? That may allow you to boot and run something
to recover the data on the drive like R-Studio etc.

Thats a pretty good indication that there isnt anything physically wrong
with the drive, just the data structures have got scrambled somehow.

Correct.

Have you seen that much ? With that particular hard drive ?

There's a number of possibilitys. There is some geometry
info in the MBR and if the MBR gets clobbered somehow,
so its got bad data in it, the bios can get royally confused
when it trys to use the bad data assuming its valid data.

Yes, but it does use whats in the MBR to work out
what partitions are on the drive and which one to boot.
It can get rather confused if that MBR has bad data in it.

All the bios is doing at that stage is looking at the partition
table in the MBR, deciding which is the active partition that
needs to be booted from, without knowing anything about
how to boot from it. The boot sector of the bootable
partition has a tiny fragment of code that looks after
actually booting the partition and its that code that has
to know how to boot the partition. Thats written to the
boot sector of the partition at format time normally.

Yes, no evidence that its dead or dying.

Yes.

You should be able to rebuild the boot sector.
Hopefully Joep or Svend or both will comment.
They both have tools for that sort of thing.

Leo <Leo@softjoys.ru> wrote in message
news:c05abcbe.0308140227.371f9899@posting.google.c om...
Bullshit.

More bullshit.

"Folkert Rienstra" <see_Reply-To@myweb.nl> wrote in message news:<bhgj6m$ikfi$1@ID-79662.news.uni-berlin.de>...

in some cases for Quantum. WD - only for model AA and newer. For
Fujitsu and Maxtors, for example, it is the reason more than 50%
references in data recovery service.

2ByteLess:
You can check your HDD with any non-destructive surface test, for
example with http://www.alkor.ru/~00115800/HDDTEST.ZIP. If there will
not be any good sectors, my diagnosis most likely is true.
Publicly accessible tools for correction of this malfunction does not
exist (if it really defect in firmware), it is necessary to address to
data recovery professionals.
HDD's PCB most likely is good, because the spindle turns also you can
see the correct name of model and serial number.

2Rod Speed:
Your version of diagnosis?

Leonid

Leo <Leo@softjoys.ru> wrote in message
news:c05abcbe.0308150448.75f05e0@posting.google.co m...
That this latest is nothing like your original
'Such malfunction of the logic card is a very rare case'

On Fri, 15 Aug 2003 04:30:53 +1000, "Rod Speed" <rod_speed@yahoo.com>
wrote:


disseminate misinformation I have to say IAWT so as to preserve the
integrity of method research into any future problems,,, for others.

/me turns the cap around (brim to front)

</geekdom>

"ByteLess" <ByteLess@the.heel> wrote in message news:21cnjvotpqntnth3erkff9d862l8jpuufu@4ax.com...
Presumably, *after* you excluded it from being bound by the BIOS.

Uhh, wouldn't that be a POST message?

Presumably you meant that you excluded the drive from being included
in the device list, i.e. no BIOS (Int13) support: "no fixed disk present".

Not that I found in what you reported. Apparently the bios POST did a small
test that the drive failed. That small test *may* just be a read to (what better)
sector 0 to see if the drive is functional and fit for BIOS inclusion.

AFAICT, it doesn't get that far.

Obvious? And what "drive table" ?

It could just be a bug in the bios code.

Not that I know of. The BIOS is OS independent.

It doesn't care.

If it is the bootsector that is causing the problem.
I would expect the WD diagnostic to have found a problem if it was.

That may be a bit difficult without destroying your data.
Most software to only clear the bootsector requires the drive to be seen in
BIOS. Most mfgr utilities that don't require BIOS will clear the whole drive.

"ByteLess" <ByteLess@the.heel> wrote in message news:gikqjv8b6qo43ocgj3u2hcqvd2r119dcgg@4ax.com...
Unfortunately, that is not what he (and I) meant.
The reserved area is where the extended firmware is (used to be) located
that has the full functionality and is loaded after spinup whereas the flash
eprom located firmware has only to deal with the drive not yet spun-up.
It also has a scratch area for the startup diagnostic and a logging area for
errors and such, logical to physical block address translating tables inclu-
ding bad block tables and of course the identification and setup sector.

Leo <Leo@softjoys.ru> wrote in message
news:c05abcbe.0308160820.17278463@posting.google.c om...
Still just plain wrong. And isnt even talking about the
situation that I was clearly talking about anyway, WHEN THE
MANUFACTURER'S DIAGNOSTIC SAYS THE DRIVE IS DEAD.

The problem isnt with the english.

On Sat, 16 Aug 2003 00:48:22 +0200, "Folkert Rienstra"
<see_Reply-To@myweb.nl> wrote:


0h,, i c,,
so the eprom is out of the equation simply by its inaccessibility both to
us (fiddlers) and any OS.
buuut the scratch area within the reserved area *_is_* accessible and
would be the residence of corrupted logical to physical addresses
(mapping).
so ,, Who gets to play in that area ? Only the manufacturer?

cheers

On Fri, 15 Aug 2003 04:30:40 +1000, "Rod Speed" <rod_speed@yahoo.com>
wrote:

snipT
thankyou for the contributions of all,, whatever that may be :- )
it (info) all makes for expanding ones horizons ?
</philosophy>

The problem is solved with the HDD back in service with full functionality.
How?
I did as suggested and configured it as a slave.
The BIOS still remained confused with the MBR data (as in) the POST didnt
get past trying to recognise the drive/s.
Figuring that as the drive was an 'older' style and knowing some of the ATX
boards have problems seeing older drives I thought that maybe despite the
fact the HDD originally came out of an ATX board it may stand a better
chance of recognition with an older BIOS.
I swapped it into a working AT setup as a slave and surprise surprise the
BIOS (AMIBIOS DMI Ver 2.0 - 1995) found the drive and followed through into
the system boot.
The boot then displayed " no win.com found ..blah blah" so I figured it was
the C:\ partition on the dodgy WD HDD that was being seen as "active"
instead of the boot partition on IDE 0.
I then ran scandisk with "no errors" and no changes to the FAT or any of
those "lost file fragments" garbage messages.
I checked the root partition and found ALL the original files intact but no
sign of the extended partition (E:\) that held the work I was looking for.
I ran PQMagic on the HDD and now got a response,, the dreaded #108 error.
I took little heed of that.
As it was obvious the WD HDD was 'booting' and looking for a Windows
system I got another HDD and wrote the Windows image ( that the boot was
looking for) to it and set up the WD HDD as IDE 0/Master with the 2nd HDD
(D:\Windows) as slave.
I should mention here that I keep all my 'builds' in PQDI format for ease
of rewriting, it certainly paid off in this instance.
On firing up the new config,, hey presto Windows started and began to
reconfigure to the new shell. When config was complete I checked the tree
and there was ALL the structure (both C:\ AND E:\) !
I copied the files across to another system and set about checking the HDD
to see if it would respond to some low level commands.
I wont go into that part of it as we all know how to format and fdisk, what
I wanted to mention (which I found interesting) was that until I deleted
all partitions using fdisk and ran <format C> , PQMagic wouldnt respond
with anything else other than Error #108.
I wonder now how many HDDs have been tossed unnecessarily.
The HDD was repartitioned using PQMagic and is now happily whirring along,
no bad sectors, no hiccups when booting - a good result.

Western Digital clammed up after my insistence on SOME support and no doubt
in due course Management will offer some BS policy statement that we
(consumers) are all to be aware of when considering buying their product.
Nonetheless WD completely missed the point as to my intention to resurrect
the HDD as there were no obvious errors and from my perspective, no
tangible reason as to why there should be, defects.
I look after my gear,, or try to :- )
Western Digital OTOH do not intend to look after me (Joe Consumer) so its
the last WD drive that graces my door - so to speak.

IF the reader would bear with me just a few more lines I would like to take
the opportunity to thank all those contributing - throughout c.c.i.p.h.s.
Its information pools like these that will keep the Net alive and free from
those purveyors of the PAY PAY PAY and keep PAYING ethic.
My IT section costs a great deal of money to keep fluid and current and
that is fine, its business. But I am damned if Corporations akin to the one
involved on this occasion should be allowed to simply ignore their
responsibility to the consumer and answer enquires with a request for a
"Valid Credit Card" (to coin a phrase) , as a solution.
They could oh so easily have responded with suggested methods as Rod put
up, something to get me thinking, but no that would be helpful !

UseNET Rules...OK :- )

Thanks

In news:n8otjvs5ot1ctahuqjeb95iqtrvhu6lqsp@4ax.com, ByteLess <ByteLess@the.pieshop.au> wrote:
Not any more than the reserved area is, really ...
Both are updated when you do a firmware flash update.
(That's assuming that ondisk firmware is still used today, which I'm
not totally sure about. When, with time, Flash eproms in their smallest available size grow faster in size than the firmware, then
costcutting
by using disk-memory in stead of flash-memory has lost it's usefulness)

To the firmware only.

No, they are not part of the scratch area. Scratch area is for R/W tests to see if
the drive is functional.

Yup.

"Folkert Rienstra" <see_Reply-To@myweb.nl> wrote in message news:<bhot4h$1lo6a$1@ID-79662.news.uni-berlin.de>...
On disk firmware of modern HDD's have a size up to 10-15 Mb, which
contain a program overlays, adaptive, SMART, translation and defect
management tables, identification data, and a lot of other data. Flash
or mask ROM on many HDD models used only for PCB POR tests and loading
of on disk overlay modules. Besides the some part of this information
demands updating during work that it is much more convenient and more
safe to do on a disk, instead of in flash.

Not only the manufacturer. Some data recovery companies can do it
also.

Leonid