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Toshiba MK1234GSX HDD2D31 120GB Data Recovery Information


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These are some real problems experienced by MK1234GSX HDD2D31 120GB and Toshiba hard drives in general that we see in our lab. We are not affiliated in any way with hard drive manufacturers. All the information below is based solely on our experience and we do not make any claims regarding reliability of the specific model. We see mostly failed drives in our lab and therefore we don't have complete statistics.

Drive was Archive for data storage on XP Pro workstation. After routine reboot drive was not recognized. Drive now click approx every 1 second on power up and is not recognized by system. (have 2nd drive w/ identical prob)
Connor E.
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Toshiba is represented on HDD market with laptop and SCSI drives. Main problem with Toshiba drives so far is bad quality of bearings lubricant in some of the 2.5 inch families(most often GAS and GAX). We see this hard drive failure since 2007 with its peak later that year.
Typical symptoms are:

  • drive spins up with loud grinding/buzzing/rattling/whirring noise: , or in worst case it appears to be dead and doesn't spin up at all
  • drive is not found in BIOS
  • when holding it next to the ear you might hear slight ticking or scratching noise as if motor tries to spin up but cannot: .
If you attempt to boot up from such drive or read any data from it you would get "Primary Master Hard Disk Fail" or "No operating system found" or "USB Device malfunctioned" error or "S.M.A.R.T. Capable But Command Failed" or some other hard drive error on boot.
Cannot boot Windows. Grinding noise started. After shutting down computer, attempts to reboot failed. Blue screens read "A process or thread crucial to system operation has unexpectedly exited or been terminated", then "Beginning dump of physical memory. Dumping physical memory to disk: 6, 14". Second blue screen read "UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME". Now Windows is giving a list of options including "Start Windows Normally", "Last Known Good Configuration", "Safe Mode", etc.
Joanne J-K
Chicago, Illinois, USA

All this makes the data inaccessible and laptop usually fails to boot and user get "Hard drive not found" error. Normally data recovery companies would attempt swapping platters is such cases in order to retrieve data. This is one of the most difficult and therefore most expensive jobs in data recovery, but in our lab we have our own know-how technology that allows to deal with this problem without opening the drive and helps us keep prices much lower.

Another quite common symptom Toshiba drives have is clicking, knocking or sweeping sound. The drive spins up and the head starts clicking right away with a constant or intermittent sound: . This is a clear sign of a bad head and clean room combined with experience and equipment is essential here for successful data recovery.

There is one more problem that is typical for all manufactured hard drives: bad sectors. After some period of time magnetic media the platters are covered with starts to degrade and bad sectors appear.
Whenever the drive hits such unreadable bad sector it could start freezing, scratching, ticking and sometimes loud clicking: . This leads to further damage to the surface and causes more data loss. As soon as you start experiencing such symptoms while reading important files stop the drive immediately and send it to a data recovery lab. Any further attempts would just add up to the problems. In our lab we use special imaging hardware tools that are capable of reading raw sector data ignoring checksum check. That's usually the only way to retrieve as much data as possible from these LBAs.

Drive was installed in a tower that experienced a high-shock load (fist to the case) after a BSOD...hard drive started clicking softly and would not boot. Removed from service at that time. It's a Toshiba, p/n: MK1234GSX HDD2D31 120GB.
Katrin S.
Graz, Austria

head sticktion to the platter
Toshiba drives also share some common laptop drives problems. One of them is heads sticktion to the platter surface. Heads are normally parked on the parking ramp outside of the platters, but sometimes due to a hit or abnormal termination they fail to return to their regular parking position and are left on the surface. Immediately after the motor stops spinning they stick to the ideally smooth surface and it becomes impossible to release them without proper tools and experience. In this case hard drive appears to be dead and in order to retrieve data it needs to be opened in clean room. Don't attempt to open the drive by yourself - chances are you will damage the heads and the surface and this will make your data unrecoverable.

If you experience any of the symptoms described above with your Toshiba MK1234GSX HDD2D31 120GB please feel free to contact us to get upfront quote on data recovery from your failed drive.

If you hear your Toshiba hard drive making some other unusual noises visit our Hard Drive Sounds page for more examples.

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Stay away from those companies. They can steal information but they can't steal knowledge and experience.



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