My friend dropped my ext. hd last night...

[vtribes]

It was dropped from knee high. But i know hds are very sensitive so i thought it was broken but we are able to watch some movies with it. (it was lost season 2 e15,e16,e17) I thought i was lucky. But this morning it makes the repeating familiar noise(the death of a hd) after i wrote some files. It was good so far to the last file's last bit. Then when i want to read the new files. The bad noise again!
I wonder if i never use it for writing and use it for just reading will it be ok? I mean just for reading like a lock or read only something. I wonder if reading will cause more damage to undamaged regions?. It was so new i hadn't have the chance to pay it. The hd in it is(was) a samsung 400 gb.

ps- I am asking this because it's 80% full. If i can never write something again it's ok. No problem. It can serve me for just reading from now on and i will be happy... I don't want to ask but if i have no chance how can i save the data?

 

[Nodsu]

Just copy off the data you can. Some utilities let you "ignore" the unreadable parts of files.

For any advanced drive diagnostics and/or recovery, you have to take the hard drive out of the enclosure and connect it directly to a PC. After that you can work on it like any normal hard drive.

If the damage is a few bad sectors, then you can do a full format on the hard drive and keep using it hoping that no new bad sectos appear.

 

[vtribes]

Last night ozzy(my friend ) droped it. Interestingly it worked fine... This morning (my morning: my local time is 15:22 now) i copied some files about 2 gb. After that when i want to access this new files the hd made the noise and freezed. Now i can access the 320 gb oldly written files. Everything is like nothing happenned last night. But i can't speak for the new ones. If there are bad sectors it is because when the head works for writing it damages the disk.:suspiciou

So now I decided to not write or delete anything on it. (Because deletion means writing too, right?) And this solution save the day for me i am watching lost again and it is ok.

If a head loses it's writing function but not reading is it safe to use a disk utility in this case. And please name one can do this...

 

[Nodsu]

It makes no difference whether you read or write - mechanically exactly the same thing happens.

 

[vtribes]

So you say the fall only cause bad sectors on unused space so my files are safe; (I can say that i have watch a clipse from every movie and they are all watchable.) It is not the fault of the head; I have to define bad sectors with a program? Sorry for all my fussiness. It is the whole archive I don't wanna risk. Thank you...

 

[Nodsu]

No, the bad sectors can be anywhere.. And since you hear funny noises, they are somewhere that is used.

You can tell the Windows disk check utility to look for bad sectors and a full format will also scan and mark bad blocks.

 

[Samstoned]

copy the data off it as soon as you can do not run it anymore untill you do this
if the drop caused a head crash there can be data that is getting ruined by repeated head move across platters the heads themselves are getting damaged
after data removal then play around with it all you want

 

[vtribes]

Since the hd i have have a 400 gb capacity this comes not in a single disk. 3 disks and 6 surfaces with 6 head. So I have tested it like opening the movie files in it. They have no problem and if we assume that 400/6=66 gb for each surface. The damaged head or surface is on the last 66 gb because that's what left on it as empty space. This is pure luck. 360 gb is working fine no problems happen if i never get close to last 5 files copied after the drop. If it was a single disk it will be a total disaster. I will use a disk utility and last 66 gb will be marked as bad sectors. And they live happily ever after...

 

[Samstoned]

if there are particles in there that came off
they will eventually get to the other heads
but it's your data

 

[Nodsu]

It would be better to just create partitions so that none of them reach the last platter.