I will give this a run but i needed to download Ubuntu. I didn't have a live version. This is going to take awhile tho @ 67K. I opened up a ticket with Seagate. They are closed now tho. I might point them to this thread. It would be easier to explain.

I will report back tomorrow thanks

Have you tried spin rite from Gibson Research Center?
https://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2020-10-29, 23:24:

Have you tried spin rite from Gibson Research Center?
https://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

iI couldn't figure out how to download the "spinright" program. It looks like i need to buy it first.

I did find one in the shareware downloads call "initdisk.exe" i figured why not.

The program recovered 4k of the hard drive. I typed in NUKE hit the button and the program disappeared. So i ejected the Hard Drive via USB. So now when i plug in the drive via USB in my win10 computer. It actually opens up a folder for it and assigns a drive letter. I did need to format the drive first. I would say that's the fastest format i ever done! (4k lmao)

Now what? Ty btw on the tip.

So when i first started i applied a drive overlay. So in retrospect the overlay is corrupt or something and is now hiding the rest of the drive? Not sure how to explain what's going on.

Ubuntu is slow going atm... 🤣

Sorry about that I thought they still had a free trial period. I've never used the other program from them. But if it was able to do something then your on the right track I would think.

The USB adapter could be a limiting factor. Try to connect it directly to a SATA port on some computer and run SeaTools from a bootable CD. You'll probably get a clearer picture of what's actually going on with it. At any rate, if you just want to reuse the drive, drives are cheap. Get a Hitachi. Their reliability is miles better than the competition. Don't take my word for it:
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-hard … -stats-q2-2020/

If you read back articles of Backblaze's reliability stats you'll see that Seagate as a company has the worst failure rates, though in the past couple of years it's gotten better.

edit: a better link, has links to their past articles on it
https://www.backblaze.com/b2/hard-drive-test-data.html

I suspect this is a firmware or NAND problem on the drive. Back in the day when I did data recovery, Seagate had a batch of bad firmware that when it failed, reported the drive as 0MB like your SMART report shows.

Those were able to be ‘repaired’ over the drives console using a serial cable. I have no idea if newer models are the same.

Edit: does the drive spin up? Can you feel it or hear it if you press ear to it? Does it spin up and then back down?

script-fu wrote on 2020-10-30, 00:38:

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2020-10-29, 23:24:

Have you tried spin rite from Gibson Research Center?
https://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

iI couldn't figure out how to download the "spinright" program. It looks like i need to buy it first.

That is NUTS ! I downloaded Spinrite 6.1 for free off their website many years ago. Guess they decided to remarket it ? (Maybe Gibson retired and needs more $ 🤣)
You can still get Spinrite 5 off winworldpc so it must not be totally restricted or they would not have it.

Horun wrote on 2020-10-30, 04:44:

That is NUTS ! I downloaded Spinrite 6.1 for free off their website many years ago. Guess they decided to remarket it ? (Maybe Gibson retired and needs more $ 🤣)
You can still get Spinrite 5 off winworldpc so it must not be totally restricted or they would not have it.

To my knowledge SR 6.1 was never offered as a free download from GRC.com. It's still in early development and when completed will be a free upgrade for SR 6.0 owners. Almost certainly the copy you got is not legit and if it's a "fully functional 6.1" then it can't be from the developer because 6.1 far from being ready.

I listen to the weekly podcast so I'm not just making stuff up. He talks about where he's at in development almost every podcast.

gbeirn wrote on 2020-10-30, 03:53:

I suspect this is a firmware or NAND problem on the drive. Back in the day when I did data recovery, Seagate had a batch of bad firmware that when it failed, reported the drive as 0MB like your SMART report shows.

Those were able to be ‘repaired’ over the drives console using a serial cable. I have no idea if newer models are the same.

Edit: does the drive spin up? Can you feel it or hear it if you press ear to it? Does it spin up and then back down?

Yep the drive spins up no problem. Not sure what you mean by "back down" as i could never write anything to the drive. The drive never had any data on it. It was brand new. I partition the drive once at 125GB for win98. When i went to install win98 the drive choked and puked. I attributed the issue to my bios. Which Gigabyte says they addressed in their beta bios as supporting up to 75GB. So i recovered the whole drive first. Then set a 75GB partition to install win98 but win98 was still having none of it. I think that's when the drive collapsed for lack of a better word.

clueless1 wrote on 2020-10-30, 10:01:

Horun wrote on 2020-10-30, 04:44:

That is NUTS ! I downloaded Spinrite 6.1 for free off their website many years ago. Guess they decided to remarket it ? (Maybe Gibson retired and needs more $ 🤣)
You can still get Spinrite 5 off winworldpc so it must not be totally restricted or they would not have it.

To my knowledge SR 6.1 was never offered as a free download from GRC.com. It's still in early development and when completed will be a free upgrade for SR 6.0 owners. Almost certainly the copy you got is not legit and if it's a "fully functional 6.1" then it can't be from the developer because 6.1 far from being ready.

I listen to the weekly podcast so I'm not just making stuff up. He talks about where he's at in development almost every podcast.

I'm not exactly sure what benefit spinrite could offer this drive? Based on what i have read and the video i watched. The program moves sectors of data to more stable parts of the drive.

However my drive has no data except the overlay. In which the partition has collapsed (again for lack of a better word). Meaning nothing can see any of the drive except for a very very small part.

clueless1 wrote on 2020-10-30, 01:29:

The USB adapter could be a limiting factor. Try to connect it directly to a SATA port on some computer and run SeaTools from a […]
Show full quote

The USB adapter could be a limiting factor. Try to connect it directly to a SATA port on some computer and run SeaTools from a bootable CD. You'll probably get a clearer picture of what's actually going on with it. At any rate, if you just want to reuse the drive, drives are cheap. Get a Hitachi. Their reliability is miles better than the competition. Don't take my word for it:
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-hard … -stats-q2-2020/

If you read back articles of Backblaze's reliability stats you'll see that Seagate as a company has the worst failure rates, though in the past couple of years it's gotten better.

edit: a better link, has links to their past articles on it
https://www.backblaze.com/b2/hard-drive-test-data.html

I will try this again this morning now that win10 can actually see the drive (not the whole drive mind you) 🤣.

Before if i ran seatools or anything else nothing would boot. All i ever got was a blinking cursor across multiple computers.

script-fu wrote on 2020-10-30, 10:55:

clueless1 wrote on 2020-10-30, 10:01:

Horun wrote on 2020-10-30, 04:44:

That is NUTS ! I downloaded Spinrite 6.1 for free off their website many years ago. Guess they decided to remarket it ? (Maybe Gibson retired and needs more $ 🤣)
You can still get Spinrite 5 off winworldpc so it must not be totally restricted or they would not have it.

To my knowledge SR 6.1 was never offered as a free download from GRC.com. It's still in early development and when completed will be a free upgrade for SR 6.0 owners. Almost certainly the copy you got is not legit and if it's a "fully functional 6.1" then it can't be from the developer because 6.1 far from being ready.

I listen to the weekly podcast so I'm not just making stuff up. He talks about where he's at in development almost every podcast.

I'm not exactly sure what benefit spinrite could offer this drive? Based on what i have read and the video i watched. The program moves sectors of data to more stable parts of the drive.

However my drive has no data except the overlay. In which the partition has collapsed (again for lack of a better word). Meaning nothing can see any of the drive except for a very very small part.

Yeah, I was responding more to Horun then to you. But I agree, if your drive is only having an Overlay, firmware, or electrical issue, Spinrite won't do anything. But, if the drive has some sector health issues, Spinrite could be of use.

https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=32792¨

Tl; dr: Your drive is f*cked. You will not recover it by software-only methods (yes, save a few bucks for proper recovery, SpinRite will not do a sh*t with this one, or any tool which can't issue specific Vendor Commands to it).
You need very low level access to the drive, which can only be done with pricey special tools if you can't get the drive to work with the built-in serial console commands, as in the linked example. And even if you manage to make it "recognizable" by the OS, I wouldn't trust this drive for data storage anymore. If it doesn't have any valuable data you want to save, just ditch it. It is done for good.

If it is borked, is the drive not still under warranty from Seagate (5 years?)

Yep Seagate said they would replace the drive in an email this morning. I linked them to this thread when they wanted to know what the problem with the drive was.

Thank you to all !

Excellent. Now you'll get a new drive and not have to worry about it for awhile