HardDisk is recognized but dd copies nothing

HardDisk is recognized but dd copies nothing

I've got an old harddrive (Seagate, 200MB) here which just failed, and I wanted to get an image from it with dd. The hd is recognized as device (f.e. /dev/sdb) but dd does not copy anything from it. Additionally to it I can't select it in parted (just does nothing, no error). I already tried to cat it (cat /dev/sdb), but that does also return nothing. This whole thing is at the moment behaving like /dev/null...someone an idea what I could try next?

Asked by: Guest | Views: 215

Total answers/comments: 2

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Guest [Entry]

Sometimes dead drives will still show up as the devices, since the connectors are still fine and the board is still fine, but one of the other physical components is broken. You could try placing the platters in another disk or paying for professional recovery, but these are probably both overkill. What was on the drive if you don't mind me asking?

Guest [Entry]

"Gotta agree with John, that sounds like gone to me too.

Couple of things to check before giving the client the bad news:

put it on a different controller -- preferably not the same chipset, but at least get it off the controller it's failing on.
keep a hand on it when you boot the machine, and again when you try the dd; if you can't feel the spin-up vibrations, the platters aren't spinning; if you can't feel the slight jerking along the face (parallel to the platters), the heads aren't moving. (might be harder to tell during the dd tho.)"