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Data recovery from a maxtor Shared Storage II drive


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Posted

I have a Maxtor Shared Storage II 1Tb drive here, which I have been using as a NAS on my home network.

 

It seems to have died completely, so after a little googling I have taken the lid off, attached the drive via a USB sata interface to a machine running knoppix. No partitions found.

 

Has anyone been able to retreave data from these units? This is the single drive version, not the dual drive raid version.

 

(The drive just flashes the power light rather than starting up.)

 

Dont really want to lose all the isos, photos etc on that box, but if its gone its gone....

Posted

If the drive spins, then I'd recommend you purchase a copy of spinrite install the drive into a PC and run it. The software is $89 but is amazing if it can be fixed this will do it, it doesn't care about file systems etc. It's been used to fix ipods and Tivos.

 

If the data you need back is more valuable that $89 go for it.

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Posted
I too was going to suggest the Ext3 option suggested by Arthur but you might also want to try Macdrive that has Salvaged many an Ext3 volume for me...
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Posted

you took the lid off!? why? If the drive hasn't physically failed you shouldn't be opening it.

 

you want to check the disk against a disk check utility like victoria to see if it has bad sectors, if it doesn't then R-studio should recover most of your data.

 

or if you want to continue with the stupid myths, why not chuck it into a freezer for a few days.

Posted

@midget I took the lid off the nas not the drive! Very important distinction!

 

The drive does spin up so recovery with spin rite etc may be possible. Will give it a try.

Posted

ah that's very good! not sure how good spin rite is, I certainly wouldn't buy it over better software out there. If you can get a copy of Hirens Boot CD there are some good bits of software on there, and I'm sure I don't have to tell you not to write the data back to that hard drive.

 

If you have any questions, feel free to ping me a PM

Posted
Just tried spinwrite, the pc in question is not showing the drive, to even start spin write. Doesn`t look good to me at the moment. (though it could be a fault on the pc!)
Posted

The disk in the fridge is definately NOT a myth..... It works and I have saved dozens of people data using that method.

 

Why does it work?

 

There are a number of reasons why, but the most common is that due to wear and load on the disk spindle the motors current increases and this causes components to overheat.

There are also alignment issues as the drive overheats.

Co-efficients of linear expansion can change microscopic tolerances across the whole drive, it might simply slow the heating up process for long enough to boot and get what you need of it.

 

It might not be the ideal recovery solution but without the same make model drive to swap electronics over from it can work so drop it into an air tight ziplock bag and pop it into the freezer for about 2 or 3 hours.

 

You have nothing to loose if you have exhausted all the other possibilities.

 

As for Spinrite, it was the only tool to use in the early days but with modern drives and the current set of standard commands such as diskpart, fixboot, fixmbr, chkdsk Im not that convinced that it has a lot more to offer any longer over the plethora of freeware stuff thats out there and ALWAYS check your Disk Vendors support site, there are OEM tools for repairing SMART tables etc... in your case I think its MAXBLAST but check with Seagate/Maxtors site for the correct utility.

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Posted
As for Spinrite, it was the only tool to use in the early days but with modern drives and the current set of standard commands such as diskpart, fixboot, fixmbr, chkdsk I'm not that convinced that it has a lot more to offer any longer over the plethora of freeware stuff thats out there and ALWAYS check your Disk Vendors support site, there are OEM tools for repairing SMART tables etc...

I agree. Why pay for SpinRite when you can use programs such as MHDD which are free and do the same job?

 

MHDD is the most popular freeware program for low-level HDD diagnostics.

 

MHDD supports these interfaces: IDE, Serial ATA, SCSI. Also there is a possibility to access an USB storage, there are drivers for emulation (USB->SCSI).

 

This software can make precise diagnostic of the mechanical part of a drive, view SMART attributes, perform low-level format, bad sector repair, different tests and tens of other functions.

 

MHDD does not use BIOS functions and interrupts. So, you even do not need to detect your drive in BIOS. You can even turn on your drive after MSDOS boots. MHDD works directly with IDE or Serial ATA controller so it does not care about partitions, file systems, BIOS (motherboard) limitations, etc.

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