Crazy Hard Drive Problem :

G

gasboi

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Hi guys.

My external is broke.

Ok not physically, but the other day whilst copying some files, i needed to cancel. The cancellation process continued for hours on a 500mb file. I figured something was wrong and just pulled out the external.

Now when I plug into any PC it asks me to format. I have had this isse before after a format the hdd works. However this drive has critical info and cant be formatted. Also, I cannot afford to use professional data recover services.

I have tried repairing the drive with spinrite and hdd regenerator. Both programs pickup no issues with the drive. Windows checkdisk however gets stuck at 13%.

I really need this data back. Any ideas / suggested fixes.

Oh and at 1 point I received a CRC error, but just one and it does not happen anymore. Basically just asks me to format drive before use when pluggen in.

Any software I can use ?

No OS on the drive, only data.

Thanks
 
Boot your pc with an Ubuntu Linux cd, dont install it, just choose live session.

If you're lucky, you should be able to see the contents of the drive.
 
I've seen this happen with NTFS formatted removable drives in the past. What happens is that the files in the cache are not properly flushed to the drive's file structure, resulting in a form of file system corruption. I've always been lucky that Checkdisk has worked, though it's often taken a long time to run.

How long did you leave it running the last time when it got stuck on 13%? You may just need to let it run for a longer period of time.
 
I agree with the guys above. Try to repair the partition with a program such as Partition Magic. Whatever you do, do not delete the partition.

Once you have managed to transfer off your files, delete the partition(s) and start from scratch.
 
Might be that the housing is faulty have seen that happen loads of times.
If you can remove the HDD without damaging the casing, plug the drive into your pc & then see if you can access the drive.
You should then test the drive with the relevant manufactures software, I use Hirens Boot CD as it contains all the major diagnostic drive software.

What also happen sometimes is that the drive's indexing gets corrupted, don't format or fdisk the drive as trying to recover files decreases. Try searching for a program called Active@ File Recovery(I know its not free but you get what you pay for), out of all the programs I tried, this one seems to work the best. It has an option to recover the partition if it has been corrupted.

Just remember if the drive isn't faulty you usually get the data, just don't wipe the drive or recover data on the source, rather save the data on a different drive check iff its not corrupted & then format the drive & copy the data back.
 
R-studio,grab a copy and scan that drive,i've saved similar ones in the past with it :)
 
MickeyD said:
Originally Posted by NeoNarchy
Might be that the housing is faulty have seen that happen loads of times.
If you can remove the HDD without damaging the casing, plug the drive into your pc & then see if you can access the drive.

see here:
Originally Posted by gasboi
Hi guys.
<snip>
Now when I plug into any PC it asks me to format.
Click to expand...

I did see that.....

My post above is the step by step way of how I try to test & recover drives ;)
I tend to explain things in an OCD kind of way sometimes. If you do things in a certain order then things don't get messed up.
 
Last edited:
gasboi:I have tried repairing the drive with spinrite and hdd regenerator. Both programs pickup no issues with the drive. Windows checkdisk however gets stuck at 13%.
Click to expand...
I think it happens again, as you was using spinrite and/or hdd regenerator.
Now if you think seriously about your data, make sector by sector image of the drive first, so you can go back if things go wrong. I think R-studio can do it. Then you can use R-studio to repair, as suggested above.
 
Last edited:
As mentioned you should image the drive first, then run r-studio on the image afterwards. Use a free imager made for this purpose like dd_rescue.
 
Thanks guys, checkdisk sorted this out after running for days now.
 
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