[ale] (SCSI) HDD recovery

[Greg Clifton]

Ken,

Since the drive doesn't spin up, there is one more thing you should try
before resulting to any desperate mea$ures. Your drive may be experiencing
stiction-where the heads stick to the platters so that the drive cannot
start to spin up. The cure for this is a little bit of violence to the
drive, i.e. give the drive a good slap or if removed from system a small
drop from say an inch or two above your desk top. This can sometimes jar the
heads loose and allow the drive to spin up.
One other thought occurs to me, if the drive is set to wait for a spinup
signal from your controller (usually via jumper plug), disable that
function. Perhaps either that portion of the circuit on the controller or
the disk board got fried and if you turn that option off it would spin up on
initial power on.
One more thing, you have other SCSI devices on the same controller that
still work? If so, it's probably not your controller but if nothing attached
to it works, suspect the controller and try a different one before spending
a ton of $ on drive recovery.
And another thing--it might be your terminators. On a drive that old (narrow
SCSI, 50pin cable, correct?), the drive terminators are usually either two
or three SIPP socketed epoxy(?) coated thingys (technical term or art)
plugged in near the power/data connectors. You could safely swap those
between drives with no fear [provided you take proper anti-static
precautions].

Good luck,
GC

On Sun, May 30, 2010 at 6:26 AM, Ken Cochran <kwc at theworld.com> wrote:

> Thanks for the replies, folks.  An update:  The HDD *does not*
> spin up.  My (lack of) experience tinkering with the hardware
> (e.g. changing the control board) leads me to see professional
> help ("someone who does this all the time" :).  Interesting that
> I've seen no references to OnTrack, even though they now have an
> Atlanta location.  Have they become the M$ of the biz nowadays?
> Way back in the early '90s when I used them, they were one of
> only about 2-3 in the country & were a referral from an HDD
> manufacturer (I think it was H-P then).  That HDD had "bricked"
> but it did spin up.  IIRC we got a full 100% recovery and it
> was a Unix system as well.
>
> I've also heard of drivesavers.com - any info about them?
> I can ship the drive but if there's an Atlanta-area company that's
> as good, I can bring it personally and much more safely.
>
> -kc
>
> > Date: Sat, 29 May 2010 23:15:07 -0400
> > From: Greg Freemyer <greg.freemyer at gmail.com>
> > To: "Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts - Yes! We run Linux!" <ale at ale.org>
> > Subject: Re: [ale] (SCSI) HDD recovery
> >
> > I think the best in the US is Seagate Recovery Services in Chicago.
> >
> > But Cherry in Marietta or Mydiskdrivedied.com in Kennesaw are both good.
> >
> > Greg
> >
> > On 5/29/10, Ken Cochran <kwc at theworld.com> wrote:
> > > Any recommendation(s) for a good hdd recovery company?
> > >
> > > Looks like a power blink took out one of my HDDs, an IBM DPSS
> > > 309170 SCSI 9gb - I think it might be spinning up but no initial
> > > "startup seek" and it doesn't come ready when the SCSI HBA
> > > (Adaptec 29160 I think) probes it on POST.  OS is FreeBSD and
> > > filesystems are UFS (I don't remember whether UFS1 or USF2).
> > >
> > > Long ago (1993-ish?) I used OnTrack (in Minnesota I think) &
> > > they did an outstanding job.  Should I use them or is there
> > > someone closer/better, e.g. in the Atlanta area?
> > >
> > > Thanks, -kc
> > > _______________________________________________
> > --
> > Sent from my mobile device
> >
> > Greg Freemyer
> > Head of EDD Tape Extraction and Processing team
> > Litigation Triage Solutions Specialist
> > http://www.linkedin.com/in/gregfreemyer
> > CNN/TruTV Aired Forensic Imaging Demo -
> >
> http://insession.blogs.cnn.com/2010/03/23/how-computer-evidence-gets-retrieved/
> >
> > The Norcross Group
> > The Intersection of Evidence & Technology
> > http://www.norcrossgroup.com
> > _______________________________________________
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