Is HDD Regenerator worth the $?

[TechGuy71]

Has anyone used HDD Regenerator? Any thoughts?

 

[TheBiff]

I have used the program for a few years now. I find it to be faster and better then SpinRite, which is a great alternative. HDD Regen is on version 1.71, I started using it at version 1.51, and I find version 1.51 is the best. I have had a lot of issues with version 1.61 and version 1.71. The problems have been not finding bad sectors when there are, or not fixing the bad sectors when an older version can.

I think over all it is worth it, but it does have its issues...

 

[TechGuy71]

I have used the program for a few years now. I find it to be faster and better then SpinRite, which is a great alternative. HDD Regen is on version 1.71, I started using it at version 1.51, and I find version 1.51 is the best. I have had a lot of issues with version 1.61 and version 1.71. The problems have been not finding bad sectors when there are, or not fixing the bad sectors when an older version can.

I think over all it is worth it, but it does have its issues...

Thanks for the reply. I went ahead and bought it, though I could swear I bought it once before but couldn't find any info on it. Hm. It's running now and it's finding a TON of bad sectors, but has kicked out twice with an error. Glad to hear you think it's better than spinrite, cause I hear that one suggested often. But I needed something.. I have had a lot of bad drives coming in lately it seems, and would like to at least try to repair them before I declare them bad... or at least have a better opportunity to recover data.

 

[MrUnknown]

I have used it and have recovered data that I couldn't otherwise for a client. But that was only 1 time so the experience is limited.

It is faster than SpinRite, but then again, it doesn't do what SpinRite does. I believe that all HDD Regenerator does is mark bad sectors as "good," reads teh data and writes it back to the same spot. If it fails writing it back, then it is a completely bad sector. SpinRite actually tries to copy data from the bad sectors, and does so in a thousand different ways to try to get at it. Also, faster isn't fast either, in my case it was almost 40hrs.

However, for the price compared to the value it could give your business, I think it is worth the investment. SpinRite costs considerably more.

 

[MrUnknown]

I have had a lot of bad drives coming in lately it seems, and would like to at least try to repair them before I declare them bad... or at least have a better opportunity to recover data.

I personally would never consider a drive as fixed by this software. There is a reason the drive marked the area as bad, saying it is good doesn't really reverse that.

 

[TechGuy71]

I personally would never consider a drive as fixed by this software. There is a reason the drive marked the area as bad, saying it is good doesn't really reverse that.

I agree. If it will help me correct a drive enough to get a good backup then it will be worth it I think. I am actually amazed at just how bad this particular drive is, watching it scan. SMART didn't see anything wrong with it.

 

[iptech]

I wouldn't use it for commercial gain, whilst the concept is interesting it's worth bearing in mind that modern hard disks are produced to a very high reliability standard. In my experience, when a hard disk starts to show surface defects then it's time to replace. Hard disks per terrabyte/gigabyte are comparatively very cheap these-days especially when set aside the potentially costly prospect of total data loss.

I will never work with a hard disk that fails manufacturer confidence tests aside from data recovery/extraction. There's too much to lose otherwise.

 

[MobileTechie]

It is faster than SpinRite, but then again, it doesn't do what SpinRite does. I believe that all HDD Regenerator does is mark bad sectors as "good," reads teh data and writes it back to the same spot. If it fails writing it back, then it is a completely bad sector.

The author claims it does a lot more than that. The claim is that is repairs the disk surface. I assumed this means it uses a rewrite algorithm designed to strengthen the magnetic encoding.

 

[MrUnknown]

The author claims it does a lot more than that. The claim is that is repairs the disk surface. I assumed this means it uses a rewrite algorithm designed to strengthen the magnetic encoding.

That's what I meant, it reads the data, and writes it back again which will make it as strong of a magnetic field as possible. If the write works, then the sector was good afterall and not really damaged so tell the drive it is good again. If it fails, the drive was right and tell the user we couldn't recover this sector.

I personally believe his site is blatently making misleading statements. such as the wording I believe you are pointing out:

Ability to repair physical bad sectors (magnetic errors) on a hard disk surface.

The word physical means "pertaining to that which is material." I wouldn't consider the magnetic field as being a physical error.

Just to clarify, I do not know exactly how HDD Regenerator works, this is my guess based on what the site says and what I was able to read elsewhere. Referring back to SpinRite, it apparently actually understands the NTFS format, and if, for example, a sector that held information on a folder was damaged, SpinRite would be able to figure out it was a folder and write that back to the disk instead of the damaged information so you have the possibility of reading that folder record again. HDD Regenerator has no knowledge of what is on the disk, just 1 or 0 and recovers only that. Of course, that is getting into logical errors I believe.

edit: Not to beat up only on HDD Regenerator, SpinRite's marketing fairy dust is worse. But still, both programs are great.

 

[baccart]

what if I am only interested in getting the data from it, What could I use that is fast? For example, I have an hd that wouldn't boot, can't see it in Dos, or minixp, but hdd found it, and took about 5 hours to do 1 percent of it(189gb). Can one of you explain the process of just copying the Documents folder?

 

[LunchBox]

I wouldn't use it for commercial gain, whilst the concept is interesting it's worth bearing in mind that modern hard disks are produced to a very high reliability standard. In my experience, when a hard disk starts to show surface defects then it's time to replace. Hard disks per terrabyte/gigabyte are comparatively very cheap these-days especially when set aside the potentially costly prospect of total data loss.

I will never work with a hard disk that fails manufacturer confidence tests aside from data recovery/extraction. There's too much to lose otherwise.

like iptech said. If the sector is bad its better to replace a drive.

I've read (can't quote right now) on few worthy forums that software that copies data, fixes the sectore and places the data back is not in the same league as recovery software ware. I personally would use whichever software I could to fix/recovery the data. After that I would replace the drive.

By the way, does the windows event log show any entry for the drive, like bad block? if so that is a strong indicator.

 

[ReclaiMe]

MHDD (cannot recall the specific url) has the option to zero-full bad blocks fast. The blocks are cleared in bunches of 1000 or 100. This provides acceptable speed at a cost of some additional data loss.