Invalid Dell service tag?

[nzoomed]

Yeah, in my case its apparently due to a faulty intel microcode update and adding dis_ucode_ldr to grub.conf was supposed to get around this issue, but didnt seem to do anything, but i may have got the syntax incorrect, as it was a bit unclear how i was supposed to add it, but the way i understood it to be was to add straight after the line that reads "GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT"

I don't know what distro you use but for me I'd edit the /etc/default/grub file

The current line for mine (in Xubuntu) is 

Code:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"

To add your one I would change it to

Code:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash dis_ucode_ldr"

Then, you have to run the "update-grub" command to actually process that change.

OK, there would have been a few steps i missed then, but at least the BIOS update has sorted it now, so Ive now removed that entry. Im running Debian 12 on this which has been a while since i last used Debian and its come a long way in that time with many more refinements since I last touched it and switched to kubuntu.
Everything seems to work OK straight out of the box which is good.

this is my goto for absolutely stuffed drives
https://www.hddsuperclone.com/

I use the livecd and usually clone to another connected drive,  it can save progress for restarting and uses three or four different methods for scraping data off bad sectors...  on a really bad drive i did a while back  which windows wouldn't even fire up it took 48 hours plus but managed to get the majority of the data off.

One i did Thursday trying to recover the thunderbird data that couldn't be copied (300 odd bad sectors),  it took about 8 hours to get the clone which then allowed me to copy off the thunderbird data completely...

Yeah, i usually find linux does it better.
I think with this drive it might be one of those instances where you need to desolder a particular component off the board and presto, it all works again, seen a few videos on this in the past.
In this case this drive contains all the 2FA data stored in session with chrome for a google account, i cant log back into the account on another device because the user never updated his contact information and the 2FA code gets sent to his old phone number.
I have seen a similar utility called open super clone, which im guessing is a fully open source alternative.

Those look like good utilities! I had not heard of them before, thanks.
Normally I have used gnu ddrescue for this kind of task.

I guess the removed component is probably a shorted ceramic capacitor, usually there is enough on the board in parallel if one fails you can remove it without affecting stability. Easier than a head-swap but finding which one is bad can be a fun time...

I will let you know how i get on with this utility, i was only introduced it by a friend this week.
I booted it up and the drive doesnt show at all, but will have a look next week when ive got more time spare.
Your right that its likely a shorted ceramic capacitor, will take some time to find, as there is a number of these. Sometimes they have fusable resistors that are there as a form of protection from voltage spikes.