Hard Disk Repair | DataRecoveryUnion.com

After switching master/slave roles, the drives still will not work together… what else can can be done?

At this point, it is recommended that the user separate the hard drives and connect them individually to the different interface ports of the system. If the system does NOT have a Secondary IDE interface, it is recommended that the user install an Ultra ATA PCI Adapter card. By doing this, each drive would then be able to individually communicate with the system. Ultra ATA PCI cards benefit your system by adding support for large capacity drives and enhanced support for data transfer rates by Ultra ATA devices.

Hard Disk Repair

Data Recovery Wizard Free Edition 5.0.1

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM15 years ago4 years ago01 mins

Data Recovery Wizard Free Edition is a comprehensive file recovery freeware which can recover deleted files or folders even when they have been emptied from Recycle Bin, recover data due to format, lost partition, system crash, and virus attack. Compare with other data recovery freeware, it can restore files from formatted disk, dynamic disk, deleted or lost partition with original file names & storage paths.

Publisher: Easeus.com

Key Features:

Recover deleted or lost files emptied from the Recycle Bin.
Recover from lost/deleted partitions.
Recover files from Dynamic Disk.
Recover from Linux file system under Windows.
Recovers from formatted partitions with original file names & storage paths.
Compatible with Windows 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, 2008, 7

Note: Data Recovery Wizard Free edition 5.0.1 only allows you to recover less than 1 GB of file.

Hard Disk Repair

No drive letter assigned after installing a new hard drive

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM15 years ago4 years ago01 mins

Why is my new drive recognized in the system BIOS but has no drive letter assigned to it in Windows?

Before the operating system can recognize the drive and assign it a drive letter, you must partition and format the drive. New hard drives are rarely pre-partitioned by the manufacturer. There are three options to formatting and partitioning the drive:

Disk Management is compatible Windows NT, 2000, and xp.
FDISK is compatible with Windows 9x, Me. Please refer to Microsoft’s knowledge base article Q255867 for instructions on FDISK.
Seagate’s MaxBlast and DiscWizard utilities are compatible with all Window operating systems. The MaxBlast and DiscWizard utilities are fast and easy ways to format a drive.

Hard Disk Repair

How to Restore Factory Capacity of Hard Drive?

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM15 years ago11 months ago03 mins

This post is a complete guide on recovering your hard drive’s factory capacity.

Reasons why hard drive might lose some megabytes or even gigabytes:

Your Operating System does not support LBA48 addressing mode
You are mixing binary and decimal gigabytes
Your motherboard has created a hidden area on your hard drive to store a backup of the BIOS binaries
Your PC/Laptop manufacturer has created a hidden area on your hard drive to store a backup of the Operating System installation files (needed for automatic restore functionality)
You have used some software that sets HPA (Host Protected Area), messes with DCO (Device Configuration Overlay), or switches off LBA48 support
You have misplaced a jumper on the drive
There was Magic involved

Solutions to Restore Hard Drive Factory Capacity :

Check jumpers. Consult with manufacturer’s instructions and set jumpers to the proper position.
Check your OS, does it have all updates installed?
Check disk partitions. Run Windows Disk Management console and see if there is any free space that is not used by any partition.
If steps 1—3 did not help, then we have a very cool tool that analyzes your hard drive’s LBA48, HPA and DCO status and recovers factory settings

Useful Tool: HDD Capacity Restore v1.2

License: Freeware
Author: Atola Technology
Supported hard drives: all hard drives
Supported OS: 32-bit versions of Windows XP/Vista/2003

HDD Capacity Restore Tool allows you to restore factory capacity of any hard drive. It does everything automatically: it extracts the factory capacity; then it restores the factory LBA48, HPA and DCO settings.

In some cases this program allows to actually increase the capacity of a hard drive (if it was limited by the distributor; for example, Hewlett-Packard sometimes sells 80-GB hard drives but sets a 40-GB limit. You can restore the full 80-GB capacity in this case).

Download Now: HDD Capacity Restore V1.2

Hard Disk Repair

Cables for Ultra ATA/66 to Ultra ATA/133 Drive Users

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM15 years ago4 years ago03 mins

Why must I use this type of cable?

The faster timing requirements of Ultra ATA/66 and above require the use of an 80-conductor cable. This is necessary for proper operation of UDMA modes 3 and greater. The 80-conductor cable is used with the same connector configuration as the standard 40-conductor cable. The 40 additional conductors are used as ground paths and are all connected to the 7 original ground conductors. These additional ground conductors serve to improve the overall signal quality (signal-to-noise ratio) of the ATA cable. 80-conductor Ultra ATA cables are also limited to a maximum cable length of 18 inches.

If the drive was purchased in a retail kit and not as a “bare” drive, the kit includes an Ultra ATA cable as described here. If not Ultra ATA cables can be purchased from your system vendor or reseller and are fully backward compatible for operation on all standard/legacy ATA devices and hosts. However, these cables will typically utilize the cable select (CS) configuration on ATA drives for defining a master or slave device (drive 0 or drive 1). The drive placement convention used on an 80-conductor cable is also different from the previous generation of cable select type cables. The 80-conductor Ultra ATA cables require the master drive (drive 0) to be installed at the end of the cable and the slave drive (drive 1) to be installed on the middle connector.

The connectors on 80-conductor cables are also color-coded to help ensure proper drive placement and attachment to the host (system). Typical color-coding is as follows: blue for attachment to the host (system), black is for device 0 (master) and gray is for device 1 (slave).

This post applies to all Seagate, Maxtor, Quantum ATA 66, ATA 100, and ATA 133 drives.

Hard Disk Repair

How to burn a disaster recovery CD?

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM15 years ago4 years ago07 mins

The most popular CD Burning Softwares, detailing how to burn a disaster recovery CD from the image file saved by Retrospect.

1. Nero Burning Rom (Ahead Software):

Start Nero and close the new compilation window, file browser window, and any wizard that appears. Choose Burn Image from the File menu. In the file selection dialog, change the shown file type to All Files, navigate to the disaster recovery ISO image, select it, and click Open. Click OK if Nero informs you it does not recognize the format of the image file. Nero presents its Foreign image settings dialog, which should have default settings of Data Mode 1, block size 2048 bytes, other values zero, and boxes unchecked. Click OK to work with these settings for the ISO image. Nero presents the Write CD window. Click Write to begin recording your disc.

2. Easy CD Creator (Adaptec/Roxio):

Start Easy CD Creator and cancel any wizard that appears. From the File menu, choose Open CD Layout. In the file selection dialog, change the shown file type from Easy CD Creator to All Files, navigate to the disaster recovery ISO image, select it, and click Open. In the CD Creation Setup window which appears, select your desired CD recorder, leave the write speed and options as they are, and click OK to begin recording your disc.

3. CD Extreme (Sony):

Start CD Extreme. At the default CD Starter window, click on the CD Extreme button/combo box in the lower right to go into the full application. From the File menu’s New Job submenu, choose Global-Image or Other Image. Click the ’…’ button at the far right of the Disk Image File area. In the file selection dialog, change the shown file type to Other Image, navigate to the disaster recovery ISO image, select it, and click Open. Click the Burn button to begin recording your disc.

4. B’s Recorder GOLD (B.H.A.):

Start B’s Recorder GOLD and close or cancel any assistant or wizard that appears. In the main window, drag the disaster recovery ISO image to the lowest of the three panes (which says it accepts Image files). Click Record at the top of the window to start burning the CD.

5. MyCD Pro (Sonic)

MyCD does not have the ability to record discs from ISO image files, but MyCD Pro does. Start MyCD Pro and close the Starter window to get to the main screen. Click the New Global-Image or Other Image button on the toolbar. A Global Image Job Setup window appears in the Job Setup pane. Highlight your CD-R drive in the Drive Status pane and select it by clicking the Select/Deselect as Recorder button on the toolbar. A red arrow appears on the drive icon to indicate it is selected. Click the Browse button from the Job Setup window. In the file selection dialog, change the shown file type to Other Image, navigate to the disaster recovery ISO image, select it, and click Open. (The path to your image file appears in the Job Setup pane.) Click the Record button to begin recording your disc. (The MyCD Pro online help includes icons in its instructions and the icons may help you better understand the steps to burn a CD from an image. Follow the help’s links from Using MyCD Pro to Global-Image Job and scroll down to Recording a CD from a Global-Image File.)

6. Macintosh OSX Disk Utility (Apple)

Open Disk Utility, which can be found in the Utilities folder. Click on Images on the menu bar and select Burn… In the Open window, browse to the ISO image file you want to burn, select the file, and click on the Open button. In the Burn Disk In: drop-down menu, select the CD burner drive that you will be burning the CD-ROM in. Click on the Burn button in the lower right hand corner. A Progress window will open that will show the progress of your CD being burned.

Hard Disk Repair

Serial ATA (SATA) Native Command Queuing (NCQ)

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM15 years ago4 years ago07 mins

What is native command queuing?

Native command queuing is arguably the most significant advancements in the Serial ATA II specification. NCQ allows the host to issue multiple commands to the device (up to 32 commands) without having to wait for the device to complete any commands. Queuing of commands allows the drive to look ahead at what data has been requested or needs to be written, thereby allowing the drive to optimize the order of the commands and maximize data throughput efficiency, providing significant performance improvement.

To enable Native Command Queuing, the Serial ATA II standard defines a method of allowing an HDD to control the order of command execution and data transfer. Using special SATA commands, READ FPDMA QUEUED or WRITE FPDMA QUEUED, the host will issue each command an identifier, or tag. The specification of Native Command Queuing allows for up to 32 tags (0 to 31). In order to avoid collisions and mishandled data, the HDD will only release a tag after the associated command is complete and the data has been returned to the host.

The concept of command queuing means that a drive does not need to return the data in the same order that the commands are requested (tags 0 to 31 can be executed in any order and data packets for those commands can be returned to the host in any order). For example, the commands may be issued in numerical order: 1, 2, 3, 4, and the data for those commands may be returned to the host in a different order: 4, 2, 1, 3 (or any other order). This allows a drive to use rotational position optimization to maximize the efficiency and overall performance of the drive.

Native command queuing FAQs:

1. What are the Native Command Queuing requirements?

In order to take full advantage of Native Command Queuing, you must have the following:

NCQ supported hard drive
Motherboards or PCI controllers with NCQ support
Verify NCQ support through your motherboard and host adapter manufacturer
Multi-threading software

2. What is multi-threading software?

Multi-threading is the ability of a program or an operating system process to manage its use by more than one user at a time and manage multiple requests by the same user without having to have multiple copies of the program running in the computer.

3. What are the advantages of using NCQ?

Some of the advantages of using NCQ supported hard drives are:

Improved endurance of the hard drive due to less mechanical wear
Higher performance when utilizing multiple command workloads

4. Will I notice a big performance increase when using a NCQ supported hard drive?

Each hard drive model will have its own product specification which you should use to determine performance. You will not see a big performance increase when using applications that do not utilize multi-threading technology. Performance increase is more noticeable when utilizing transactional workloads.

5. How do I enable NCQ?

Native Command Queuing is enabled at the firmware level of the hard drive and cannot be altered by the end user, which means you have support as long as all the other requirements are met. If all requirements are not met, NCQ will not be utilized.

6. Can I use my NCQ supported hard drive with a non NCQ supported controller or motherboard?

Yes. The NCQ supported hard drives will work just fine with non-NCQ supported controllers or motherboards. However you will not be able to take advantage of the NCQ features.

7. What Seagate model numbers support NCQ?

Since late 2004, most new SATA drive families have supported NCQ. The following Seagate model numbers drive familes support NCQ:

Barracuda 7200.8, 7200.9, 7200.10, 7200.11 (SATA) and later
Barracuda NL35, NL35.2, ES, ES+, ES.2 (SATA) and later
Momentus 5400.2, 5400.3 (SATA) and later
Momentus 7200.1, 7200.2 (SATA) and later
Momentus 5400 PSD and later
Momentus 5400 FDE.2 and later

The difference between Native Command Queuing & Tagged Command Queuing:

The difference between NCQ (Native Command Queuing) and TCQ (Tagged Command Queuing) for the SCSI-2 and later specification is that TCQ supports 3 modes of queuing:

Simple – specifies that the command is to be placed in the drive’s command task set (queue). If several commands are present, the drive may reorder them to increase overall throughput.

Head of queue – directs the drive to place the command at the beginning of the queue, to be executed next. Consecutive commands with Head of Queue specified are executed in last-in-first-out order. Queue is 64.

Ordered – specifies that commands in the drive’s task set are to be executed in the order received (FIFO).

Hard Disk Repair

Common blue screen error messages in windows

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM15 years ago2 years ago07 mins

Blue Screen stop messages provide diagnostic information, such as Stop codes and driver names, that you can use to resolve the problem. However, this information disappears when you restart your computer. Therefore, it is important to record the information displayed for future reference.

The following are a list of the more common stop codes and potential resolutions in windows:

Stop 0x0000000A or IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
Stop 0x0000001E or KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED
Stop 0x00000024 or NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM
Stop 0x0000002E or DATA_BUS_ERROR
Stop 0x0000003F or NO_MORE_SYSTEM_PTES
Stop 0x00000050 or PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA
Stop 0x00000077 or KERNEL_STACK_INPAGE_ERROR
Stop 0x00000079 or MISMATCHED_HAL
Stop 0x0000007A or KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR
Stop 0x0000007B or INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE
Stop 0x0000007F or UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP
Stop 0x0000009F or DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE
Stop 0xBE or ATTEMPTED_WRITE_TO_READONLY_MEMORY
Stop 0xC2 or BAD_POOL_CALLER
Stop 0x000000CE or DRIVER_UNLOADED_WITHOUT_CANCELLING_PENDING_OPERATIONS
Stop 0x000000D1 or DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
Stop 0x000000D8 or DRIVER_USED_EXCESSIVE_PTES
Stop 0x000000EA or THREAD_STUCK_IN_DEVICE_DRIVER
Stop 0x000000ED or UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME
Stop 0x000000F2 or HARDWARE_INTERRUPT_STORM
Stop 0xC000021A or STATUS_SYSTEM_PROCESS_TERMINATED
Stop 0xC0000221 or STATUS_IMAGE_CHECKSUM_MISMATCH

Error Messages Related to Disks and File Systems:

These messages can provide more information for determining the cause of the Stop message. More specifically file system errors, viruses, hard disk corruption, or controller problems can cause the following Stop messages:

1. Stop 0x00000024 or NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM
This Stop message, also known as Stop 0x24, indicates that a problem occurred within Ntfs.sys, which is the driver file that allows the system to read and write to NTFS volumes.

2. Stop 0x00000050 or PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA
This Stop message, also known as Stop 0x50, occurs when requested data is not found in memory. The system generates a fault, which indicates that invalid system memory has been referenced. This fault can occur due to a variety of error conditions, such as bugs in antivirus software, a corrupted NTFS volume, or faulty hardware (typically related to defective RAM, be it main memory, L2 RAM cache, or video RAM).

3. Stop 0x00000077 or KERNEL_STACK_INPAGE_ERROR
This Stop message, also known as Stop 0x77, indicates that the requested page of kernel data from the paging file could not be read into memory. Stop 0x77 can be caused by a number of problems, such as:

Bad sectors on the hard disk.
Defective or loose cabling, improper SCSI termination, or the controller not seeing the hard disk.
Another device is causing a resource conflict with the storage controller.
Failing RAM.

4. Stop 0x0000007A or KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR
This Stop message, also known as Stop 0x7A, indicates that the requested page of kernel data from the paging file could not be read into memory.

One of the following conditions usually causes a Stop 0x7A: a bad sector in a paging file, a virus, a disk controller error, defective hardware, or failing RAM. In rare cases, a Stop 0x7A occurs when nonpaged pool resources run out.

5. Stop 0x0000007B or INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE
This Stop message, also known as Stop 0x7B, indicates that Windows XP Professional lost access to the system volume or boot volume during the startup process. This error always occurs while the system is starting and is often caused by one of the following:

Hardware problems
Corrupted or incompatible storage drivers
File system problems
Boot sector viruses
Outdated firmware

During I/O system initialization, this error can occur when:

The controller or driver for the startup device (typically the hard disk) failed to initialize the necessary hardware.
File system initialization failed because the system did not recognize the data on the boot device.

Hard Disk Repair

What should I do for a noisy hard disc drive?

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM15 years ago7 years ago02 mins

All of our new Parallel ATA (PATA) hard drives and new Serial ATA (SATA) hard drives are optimized for performance, we do not have a utility that can quiet them down.

While modern drives are extremely quiet, every disc drive makes a certain amount of noise while running. Normally, the faster the drive motor spins, the higher pitched the resulting sound will be.

It is also normal for the drive to make sort of a “chattering” or “clicking” sound while it is reading and writing data.

However, if the sound coming from the area around your drive has recently changed or is an excessive grinding or clanking noise, this may indicate a physical problem with the drive.

Noise from the cooling fans in the power supply are often mistaken as hard drive noise. To isolate whether the noise is coming from the drive or one of the fans, you can issue a “spin down” command through software. The Seagate SeaTools for DOS diagnostic has an acoustical spin down test.

If the sound goes away, then the sound was produced by the drive. If the sound remains, then the drive is not the cause of the sound.

Hard Disk Repair

BIOS Limitation/BIOS Capacity Barrier

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM15 years ago4 years ago07 mins

The BIOS limitation or BIOS capacity barrier is the computer’s inability to recognize hard drive capacities larger than allowed by the hard-coded programming contained in your system BIOS. For example, your system BIOS might only be capable of understanding a hard drive capacity of up to 32 GB. If you then attempt to install and auto-detect a 40 GB hard drive, the system will freeze because the BIOS is not capable of understanding the capacity reported by the hard drive. In short, that particular BIOS cannot count past 32 GB.

Seven Major BIOS Limitations:

Systems with BIOS dated prior to July 1994 (504 MB Limitation).
Typically these BIOS will have a 504 megabyte (1,024 cylinders) limitation. Prior to this date, most manufacturers’ BIOS did not provide the Logical Block Address (LBA) feature needed for proper translation. Some BIOS had LBA mode in the setup, but the feature did not work properly.
Systems with BIOS dated after July of 1994 (2.048 GB Limitation).
Typically, these BIOS provide support for hard drives with capacities larger than 504 megabytes. However, depending on the manufacturer’s release date and version number, different limitations may be encountered. The major limitation that surfaces is the 4,093-4,096 cylinder limitation. This barrier is derived from the fact that some BIOS manufacturers implemented Logical Block Addressing (LBA) translation in their BIOS with a 4,093 – 4,096 cylinder limitation. System hangs would occur when the cylinder limitation threshold is exceeded. A system hang is defined when the operating system hangs during initial loading, either from floppy diskette or existing hard drives. If these symptoms of system hang occur or there are questions whether the system BIOS will support the drive, contact the system or motherboard manufacturer for assistance.
4.2 GB Limitation.
The maximum parameters at the 4.2 GB barrier are 8,190 cylinders, 16 heads and 63 sectors for a capacity of 4.2 GB. A system hang is defined when the operating system stops responding during initial loading, either from floppy diskette or existing hard drives. This can be caused by the BIOS reporting the number of heads to the operating system as 256 (100h). The register size DOS/Windows 95 uses for the head count has a capacity of two hex digits. This is equivalent to decimal values 255. If these symptoms of system hang occur or there are questions whether the system BIOS will support the drive, contact the system or motherboard manufacturer for assistance.
8.4 GB limitation.
The maximum parameters at the 8.4 GB barrier are 16,383 cylinders, 16 heads and 63 sectors for a capacity of 8.455 GB. To go beyond this boundary, a new extended INT 13 function is needed from the BIOS as a support feature for the drives. The BIOS listed below are all “CORE” BIOS that will support drives larger than 8.4 GB. Even though a BIOS is dated correctly or is the current version, it may not be able to support extended interrupt 13 because of modification done to the “CORE” of the BIOS from the motherboard manufacturer.
32 GB limitation.
This condition is caused by the Award BIOS inability to address hard drives greater than 32GB. Award has been made aware of this issue and has fixed their “core” BIOS as of 6/99. They are passing this information along to the motherboard manufacturers’ that use their BIOS. Updates for the BIOS should be available soon from individual motherboard manufacturers’ to correct this problem.
64 GB Limitation
There is no 64GB BIOS Capacity Barrier. If you use FDISK to format a drive that is larger than 64 GB, FDISK will report the incorrect disk size.
137 GB Limitation
Some system BIOSes are limited to 137 GB because they can only support 28 bit Logical Block Addressing (LBA).

Procedure on how to overcome the BIOS capacity limitation:

Check with the system or motherboard manufacturer for any BIOS upgrades for the system. If there are no BIOS updates from the manufacturer you can visit www.esupport.com for a BIOS update.
(Recommended) Purchase a PCI ATA controller card that will support the capacity of the drive. The two benefits of ATA controller cards are:

the ability to support large capacity drives
the ability to support the faster transfer rates of the drive.