Maxtor DiamondMax 8 (N40P family) hard
drive with bad sectors
Bad sectors are areas of a hard disk that become
unusable. If identified early enough, data lost to bad sectors
is often recoverable.
The causes of bad sectors are numerous & include:
- Physical shocks to the drive such as the computer containing
the drive receiving a knock, vibration etc.
- Temperature
- Over time, the drive's physical magnetic media will degrade
naturally
- High capacity drives will develop bad sectors through the
effects of
superparamagnetism
We used a digital oscilloscope to record and study the effects
of bad sectors on a Maxtor drive that came in for recovery.
Maxtor drives are no more prone to developing faults than any
other drive; this particular drive was chosen because it displayed
very clear bad sector symptoms and gave good results under analysis.
The data was successfully recovered. |
|
Oscilloscope trace of bad sectors on a Maxtor DiamondMax
8 hard disk drive (N40P family)
The graph below shows oscilloscope readings from 2 Maxtor
DiamondMax 8 hard disks. One drive contains bad sectors, the other
does not.
The Blue Trace
is of a disk that does not contain any bad sectors. You'll notice
that the wave pattern is of a uniform type, this is indicative of
a correct read signal and shows us that the drive is reading data
correctly.
The Red Trace shows
the read signal from a drive with bad sectors. You'll notice that
when bad sectors are encountered (circled in red) there is a related
reduction in the strength of read signal. This is detected by the
drive electronics and the signal is boosted as further attempts are
made to re-read the data (circled in green).
Links:
> Specific
page: Failure
information and symptoms on Maxtor DiamondMax 8 (N40P) hard disks
> Specific page:
Failure
symptoms common to all slimline Maxtor hard disks
> Recovering
drive with bad sectors using Diskmaster
> General page: Common
failures on Maxtor hard disk drives
> General page: Main
data recovery
information page
Please note that all modern hard
disk drives are manufactured to very high standards, fail infrequently
and have very similar rates of reliability.
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