Fujitsu MPG 3409-AT broken, data recovery possible?

[Gundemarie Scholz]

Good morning!

Since January 2002 I am using the above-mentioned Fujitsu HDD
as my second drive, containing programmes and data not directly
related to the OS. Last night all of a sudden a window that I
only know from USB devices popped up asking me kindly not to
remove that device in the future without deactivating it first.
Together with the hard drive my CD burner said good-bye, it was
attached to the same IDE cable, HDD as master, CD burner as
slave.

This morning my PC booted normally, recognized both hard drives
and both CD drives correctly, but after half an hour last night's
error re-occurred.

I was able to reproduce the error with a different PC, the HDD
was attached to a different IDE cable, again as master. The slave
CD burner disappeared as well.

In both machines the CD burner, when attached alone to the IDE
cable, gets recognized correctly and works faultless.

I can find the following entries in the event log
(with free translation from German):

=== snip ===
Der Treiber hat einen Controllerfehler auf \Device\Harddisk1\DR1
gefunden. (A driver has found a controller error on
\Device\Harddisk1\DR1.)

Ein Paritätsfehler wurde auf \Device\Ide\IdePort1 gefunden.
(A parity error was found on \Device\Ide\IdePort1.)

Bei einem Auslagerungsvorgang wurde ein Fehler festgestellt.
Betroffen ist Gerät \Device\Harddisk1\DR1.
(During a swapping process an error occurred. The affected device
is \Device\Harddisk1\DR1.)

Es wurde eine Benachrichtigung über einen Geräteschnittstellenempfang
für folgendes Gerät empfangen: \\?\IDE#DiskFUJITSU_MPG3409AT__E______
______________82C5____#4&374899a1&0&0.0.0#{53f56307-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00
a0c91efb8b}
(Following message about device interface receipt was received for
the following device: ....)

{Datenverlust bei verzögertem Schreiben} Das System hat versucht,
Dateidaten vom Puffer in die Datei \Device\HarddiskVolume3 zu
schreiben. Der Schreibvorgang ist fehlgeschlagen. Eventuell wurden
nicht alle Daten in die Datei geschrieben.
({Data loss due to delayed writing} The system tried writing file
data from the buffer to the file \Device\HarddiskVolume3. The write
process failed. Maybe not all data was written to the file.)
=== snip ===

I have disconnected the affected HDD for now, hoping for it to
cool down a bit and maybe allowing me to gain access a very last
time. Is there any possibility (other than sending the drive
somewhere and paying a lot of money for data recovery) to get hold
of the data on the drive?

Regards,
Gunde

 

[Rolf Blom]

Good morning!

Since January 2002 I am using the above-mentioned Fujitsu HDD
as my second drive, containing programmes and data not directly
related to the OS. Last night all of a sudden a window that I
only know from USB devices popped up asking me kindly not to
remove that device in the future without deactivating it first.
Together with the hard drive my CD burner said good-bye, it was
attached to the same IDE cable, HDD as master, CD burner as
slave.

This morning my PC booted normally, recognized both hard drives
and both CD drives correctly, but after half an hour last night's
error re-occurred.

I was able to reproduce the error with a different PC, the HDD
was attached to a different IDE cable, again as master. The slave
CD burner disappeared as well.

In both machines the CD burner, when attached alone to the IDE
cable, gets recognized correctly and works faultless.

I can find the following entries in the event log
(with free translation from German):

=== snip ===
Der Treiber hat einen Controllerfehler auf \Device\Harddisk1\DR1
gefunden. (A driver has found a controller error on
\Device\Harddisk1\DR1.)

Ein Paritätsfehler wurde auf \Device\Ide\IdePort1 gefunden.
(A parity error was found on \Device\Ide\IdePort1.)

Bei einem Auslagerungsvorgang wurde ein Fehler festgestellt.
Betroffen ist Gerät \Device\Harddisk1\DR1.
(During a swapping process an error occurred. The affected device
is \Device\Harddisk1\DR1.)

Es wurde eine Benachrichtigung über einen Geräteschnittstellenempfang
für folgendes Gerät empfangen: \\?\IDE#DiskFUJITSU_MPG3409AT__E______
______________82C5____#4&374899a1&0&0.0.0#{53f56307-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00
a0c91efb8b}
(Following message about device interface receipt was received for
the following device: ....)

{Datenverlust bei verzögertem Schreiben} Das System hat versucht,
Dateidaten vom Puffer in die Datei \Device\HarddiskVolume3 zu
schreiben. Der Schreibvorgang ist fehlgeschlagen. Eventuell wurden
nicht alle Daten in die Datei geschrieben.
({Data loss due to delayed writing} The system tried writing file
data from the buffer to the file \Device\HarddiskVolume3. The write
process failed. Maybe not all data was written to the file.)
=== snip ===

I have disconnected the affected HDD for now, hoping for it to
cool down a bit and maybe allowing me to gain access a very last
time. Is there any possibility (other than sending the drive
somewhere and paying a lot of money for data recovery) to get hold
of the data on the drive?

Regards,
Gunde

The MPG3 series disks have known errors in their controller chips.
(I had two out of three die with no warning after about 18months in
operation, so I junked the lot and switched brand.)

here's a link to some information on them:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/63/27926.html

some UK repair centers, you probably have similar in Germany too:
http://www.pc1staid.co.uk/fujitsu.html
http://www.dataclinic.co.uk/fujitsu-hard-disk-recovery.htm

It's costly just to look at them, successful recovery costs even more,
so unless you depend on the data for you life/business etc, forget it.

 

[Gundemarie Scholz]

:
[snip]

The MPG3 series disks have known errors in their controller chips.
(I had two out of three die with no warning after about 18months in
operation, so I junked the lot and switched brand.)

here's a link to some information on them:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/63/27926.html

According to the sticker on the original plastic box the hdd came in
(yes, I am a packrat! (- the hdd was manufactured in September 2001,
so that matches the description.

some UK repair centers, you probably have similar in Germany too:
http://www.pc1staid.co.uk/fujitsu.html
http://www.dataclinic.co.uk/fujitsu-hard-disk-recovery.htm

Thanks for the links, with that backed up knowledge I will go to the
store I bought the hdd from, and I will try to get a refund.

It's costly just to look at them, successful recovery costs even more,
so unless you depend on the data for you life/business etc, forget it.

After some hours of letting the hdd cool down I plugged it in again
and actually managed to mirror the most important partition with Ghost.
Afterwards it kept working fine, maybe it was because I kept it cool
with a coolpack right from my freezer...

Regards,
Gunde

 

[garfieldmr]

[snip]
If you have the drive running, get your data and toss that drive...
period.

Fujitsu got out of the desktop drive business more than a year ago....
(hint I doubt you are going to get a replacement or refund)

Get that data and don't walk away... run away from that drive.

Garfield

 

[Gundemarie Scholz]

[snip]
Fujitsu got out of the desktop drive business more than a
year ago....
(hint I doubt you are going to get a replacement or refund)

Well, I can at least try and get something out of it now that
I have saved all data on the drive. After all there is a two
year warranty on all such goods here that a vendor has to give,
even if the manufacturer doesn't.

I will keep you updated...

Regards,
Gunde