My 4TB Seagate ST4000DM004-2CV104 hard drive contained about 3.6TB of data and began showing health problems several months ago. I delayed replacing it and, three days ago, it stopped appearing in File Explorer. It disconnects during read/write operations and sometimes drops out on its own after roughly 20 minutes. The drive uses NTFS on Windows.
I have already made several recovery attempts with ddrescue, including multiple passes, trimming, and scraping with OSC. So far I have recovered around 1.5TB, but some particularly important files are still inaccessible. I have a new 6TB drive ready for the recovered data. Are there any safer tools or techniques I should try, or is professional recovery now the better option?
2 Answers
At this point, changing recovery programs may not help much if the remaining files are blocked by failing hardware. Continued scanning can make the drive deteriorate further. For data that is genuinely irreplaceable, stop experimenting and contact a reputable professional recovery service; they may need to repair or replace internal components in a controlled clean-room environment. It can cost several hundred dollars or more, but it gives the best chance of recovering data that software cannot read.
You have already recovered more than most people could manage without specialist experience. You could try HDDSuperClone, which is designed for handling unstable drives and may work better than repeatedly stressing the original disk. There is also an open-source fork available, but be very careful to work from an image or clone and avoid unnecessary reads from the failing drive.
Thanks, I’ll look into HDDSuperClone and make sure I’m as careful as possible with the original drive.
That makes sense. I appreciate the warning and may use a professional service for the most important files.