Diagnostic Tools

PressXPressX Working! New
edited July 2004 in Hardware
Anyone know of some kick ass Diagnotic tool that run on XP. I have tried all my usual ones and not having any luck. I am attemping to read a corrupt quantum HDD via an exteranl USB caddy. Most of my diag stuff works normally but this is proving to be a little pain in the rear.

Any thoughts?

Marcus

Comments

  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited July 2004
    Lots of good recovery software that will do a decent job of recovering the drive but I would hang it off an internal ide and get it recovered and then format it or whatever and play in the usb enclosure.

    tex
  • PressXPressX Working! New
    edited July 2004
    ahh... but that would mean opening up the PC every time I wanted to recover a drive. But I here what you are saying...
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited July 2004
    Oh for god sakes. The goal here is to NOT have to recover drives. I have 4 to 6 computers in my house with over 15 drives. I also do this sort of thing profesionaly and I don't have to recover more then a drive every 60 days or so and thats 90 percent for other folks.

    Tex
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited July 2004
    Tex wrote:
    Lots of good recovery software that will do a decent job of recovering the drive but I would hang it off an internal ide and get it recovered and then format it or whatever and play in the usb enclosure.

    tex


    Excellent idea-- you are more likely to be able to do fine recovery in a hookup that is native to drive than with a USB connect as the adapter circuitry might not bea able to properly work with a damaged FS or media drive after it is damaged. USB drivers for such a device are likley to result in a drive dehook due to Hotplug\Hotswap disconnect in driver layers if drive is damaged. Putting it on a pure BIOS support by hanging it as an IDE connect eliminates driver layering to a large degree and lets you work with details that USb will simply disconnect and leave you with worse mess, insofar as just recovery goes. The real fine recovery software needs a hyper-stable continuous data flow for the duration of the time you are trying to recover-- for a partial recovery, this time can be shorter, but in real heavy recovery attempt you might be running software for hours to peel back, read, and rebuild using software multiple magnetic write layers. This is why recovery specialists use a direct native connect from the get-go. If USB devices get faults, XP can eventually spontaneously disable drivers temporarily. If you put a mech into a carrier\adapter and the device circuits are not set up to be compatible with the drive's parms, you will get junk for your recovery attempt.

    ALWAYS use the native connect if you want best recovery results, as best general rule, with a damaged HD or badly damaged file system. Using a USB adapter requires you know lots of details about how hotswap\hotplug can interfere adn what speeds and sizes the drivers and possibly an onboard to device BIOS are compatible with, and I do not even use that. Instead, so as not to open case, I use IDe cold-swap with carriers that slide into bay-mounted housings, for IDE. Then I can use recovery software on a drive in a slid in and locked in carrier that has been slid into a bay-mounted adapter. That is one reason I have and use cold-swap IDE at all, other than that my backups are most frequently done to HDs that are only mounted to get or send recovery\restore data rather than other media.
  • GobblesGobbles Ventura California
    edited July 2004
    PressX wrote:
    ahh... but that would mean opening up the PC every time I wanted to recover a drive. But I here what you are saying...

    OMG and that takes like 2 seconds... if its your primary PC then build a test box.. I have a 2u 4u and a semi/standard PC (hp ml330) test box oh and a 5u over in the corner. I keep the sides/tops off them all the time.. problem solved...

    Gobbles
  • GobblesGobbles Ventura California
    edited July 2004
    Oh and for tools.. most of the stuff ontrack makes is pretty good. http://www.ontrack.com
  • PressXPressX Working! New
    edited July 2004
    Thanks for the info everyone.
    Some good points. I agree that the direct access is the best. I also have a box with the panels off just for that purpose. I have a caddy which I was messing around with today and wanted to see if I could get as far with it, hence saving me the shutdown, connect, restart that is needed for the ide. More efficiency than being lazy but not necessarily the best results. I get a lot of customers who come in and ask for data recovery or drive backup and I was looking at the caddy as an on the fly option if it was stable and efficient enough. Always good to get a second opinion :-)

    Marcus
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited July 2004
    Test Disk has become a big favorite of mine. I found it by chance when helping another member, then used it to save my own bacon a few months later.

    Don't know if it works for a USB drive, though. Try it and let us know. :)
  • PressXPressX Working! New
    edited July 2004
    Will try it. TY.

    Marcus
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited July 2004
    testdisk is great if al you need is to try and repair a filesystem. You need "get data back" or one of the recovery software prograns to actualy recover data when the disk is failing. but testdisk does a great job of repairing damaged filesystems.

    Tex
  • PressXPressX Working! New
    edited July 2004
    Sorted. Disk was fine. Turned out to be a bios issue

    USB Caddy: Reads Most disks but nothing clever. Try and run any diags (have a few broke HDD around) and just does not like it. Would have been usefull but I have a long ide lead and molex instead :)
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited July 2004
    Gobbles wrote:
    OMG and that takes like 2 seconds... if its your primary PC then build a test box.. I have a 2u 4u and a semi/standard PC (hp ml330) test box oh and a 5u over in the corner. I keep the sides/tops off them all the time.. problem solved...

    Gobbles

    I have a 6' rack and a 3' rack next to it. man doesnt having the PC's in slide out rack cases just spoil you after awhile? Awesome really. All the networking switchs and routers are racked and I'll soon move the stero amp and preamp/tuner to it also as it composes the computer sound system basicaly.

    I keep the top and bottom panels on the cases for the computers but not the scsi racks but even those I don't screw down so I can just lift them off.

    I may have to sell off a lot of this stuff before I move to Colorado because I won't have room for it but man... I think I will regret it latter a bunch.

    Tex
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