This HGST hard drive is an HTS545050A7E680 500GB model that was made in February of 2014. This client took their computer into their local computer repair shop to find out why the laptop had just suddenly stopped working. They used the laptop for personal photo storage as well as work documents, so they needed all the data back and the computer to be back up and running as soon as possible.
Hard Drive Bad Sectors Recovery
The computer repair shop found that the hard drive was not responding properly, which in turn caused the computer to not boot fully. They removed the hard drive from the computer and discovered the drive was not showing up on their data recovery rigs as well. The repair shop was able to get the computer working again by installing a new hard drive, but they recommended the client contact us regarding getting the important photos and work documents recovered. We have worked with this recovery shop in the past and have been able to recover data for their clients.
Diagnosing the HTS545050A7E680 hard drive
We discussed with the client that the likely price was our Standard data recovery service, and they decided to bring the drive in for recovery. Once we received the drive I diagnosed it with the PC-3000 and found that the heads were working properly and I had access to the data on the platters. I prepared the firmware of the drive to optimize the imaging process, then connected it to a Deepspar Disk Imager to complete the imaging process.
Imaging Process
The actual problem with this drive ended up being bad sectors. Sometimes hard drive sectors can go bad at just the wrong place on the hard drive, making the computer not able to mount the partition. That was what was happening in this case. Right at the beginning of the first pass, the drive missed an important sector for the process of mounting the drive on a computer. After the first 5% of the drive, that was still the only sector that was missed.
Once the first pass was completed there was less than 1% of the drive that was not recovered, so I did a few more imaging passes and was able to get back everything except that first single sector towards the front of the drive! Once the imaging was complete, it was time to use my favorite data recovery software to get back as much of the folder structure as possible.
I was able to scan the recovered sectors and get back 100% of the data from the drive including folder structure and filenames. The client was pleased to have all their photos and work documents back safe and sound.
This recovery was a good reminder that most computer repair shops will do their best to get the data back off a failing drive, but without the expensive tools and years of experience recovering data, they may not be successful in recovering the data. If you have been told your drive is not recoverable without spending a thousand dollars or more on your recovery, send the drive to us for a second opinion… sometimes it is just bad sectors causing all the fuss.
Bad sectors data recovery
If you have a drive that is not showing up and you need data off it, please let me know by filling out my quote form or giving me a call at (620) 615-6836. I look forward to helping you get your important data back!
Drive info: HGST HTS545050A7E680, 500GB, HDD: Z5K500-500, P/N: 0J37165, MLC: DA6129, WWN: 5000CCA7ADED802F
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