Panic mode: HD not working

[kitamesume]

Just my two cents, but if you CAN take an image of the drive, then you definitely should. Once thats done you can determine the health of the drive.

this... i mean, wtf are you waiting for then? take a d.mn image already and be done with it.

[GoGeTa006]

Just my two cents, but if you CAN take an image of the drive, then you definitely should. Once thats done you can determine the health of the drive.

this... i mean, wtf are you waiting for then? take a d.mn image already and be done with it.

I CANT, I CANT AFFORD A 1TB DRIVE ATM. . .I got a 750 one and I'll be doing this tomorrow since I have time. . .
I dont have friends that are geek enough to have TB drives. . . =,=

[Freedom Kira]

I refuse to accept such nonsense! the drive is perfectly fine and just had a black-out moment for some obscure reason outside of our understanding. . .
Im assuming there was a sudden change in the earth's magnetic field just over the exact space where my hard drive was stored (when it was external) and the sudden change deleted ONLY THE INDEX and everything else is safe. . .
thats my story and im sticking to it. . .

Well, at least you're being optimistic. Better than imagining the worst case scenario like you were in the beginning.

I'd prefer to be a realist, though, hence my post.

As for those pushing for the drive image, it's been made pretty clear that he can't. He doesn't have a backup drive large enough for a 1TB image.

... Ninja'd. =(

GoGeTa - Newegg.ca's Shell Shocker today is a 1TB 2.5" drive for $100. That's cheaper than the cheapest 3.5" 1TB drive.

[rkruger]

Im assuming there was a sudden change in the earth's magnetic field just over the exact space where my hard drive was stored (when it was external) and the sudden change deleted ONLY THE INDEX and everything else is safe. . .
thats my story and im sticking to it. . .

Your view of technology is... interesting.

From your original post, you mention two distinct problems. The first one being that you noticed the drive "slowing down" or something like that, and then the second problem that Windows no longer recognizes the file system. If the drive was really starting to act strangely over time, I would have to agree with Freedom Kira, that a hardware failure is involved. (Meaning you should image the drive ASAP.)

Regarding the second problem, assuming no hardware problems are involved, there is a possibility that the partition table on the disk has been corrupted or removed. (The message you mentioned, that Windows wants to reformat the drive, is a typical symptom of this.) I am mentioning this because certain viruses and other malware have the possibility to perform this kind of damage.

[GoGeTa006]

Im not sure what to think, I've left the recovery software analysing the drive since 10:00 AM  (its 6:00 PM) and its like 35% done, im assuming once it gets to the "empty" part it will go a lot faster. . .

anyways I keep getting error messages:
READ DISC *hard drive name* at position *some huge number* failed after 2 attempts (data error) cyclic redundancy check
BUT in the little picture with all the blocks its colored under the color code "specific recognized data files"

so. . .I have no clue what to expect, but im kind of loosing faith. . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHv9acm3fF0&feature=related

[Freedom Kira]

The point of recovery software is to recover stuff that's been deleted, i.e. marked as free space. It will never go any faster - every part of the drive is treated the same way. Think of it this way. You have a surveyor analyzing a minefield. You want to find all the mines (your data) you can, but the entire minefield looks like a field of grass (deleted data). Would you be fine if the surveyor just went "oh, nothing to see here, let's move on"?

Wait until it's done. It takes more than a few hours to analyze a whole freaking terabyte. 8 hours for ~350 gigs is pretty decent. At this rate you should be able to analyze the whole disk in 24 hours. Be patient.

Disk read errors are a sign of a failing disk. Be sure to not use the disk again once this is all over, or if you absolutely must, perform a Windows long (aka regular, non-quick) format on it so that it analyzes the disk to mark bad sectors before actually formatting.

[kitamesume]

those errors gives me the feeling that its not a mechanical failure, you wouldn't want that imho its the worst issue to have on a drive.

btw, does it make any weird noise during its run? like a high-pitched whine or a clicking sound? because... err... you wouldn't wanna know if thats the case.

[GoGeTa006]

Well, the hard drive sounds perfectly fine, it doesnt feel hot or anything and the sound it makes is the same as all other hard drives i've owned.

I am perfoming a second check, specific search for mkv,avi,ogg, etc. . .files which is supposed to yield better results

the first 20 hr scan. . . it found nothing but some crappy bullshit files that come with the hard drive (the software included by WD)
. . .
anyways. . .Im sad

(click to show/hide)

*edit*
Im downloading some of my fav. series that were lost in oblivion. . .
lets fk up my ratio a little

[datora]

.
Good News is that you don't seem to have a mechanical failure.  You should have a fair bit of opportunity to attempt different recovery options, although that part still looks grim.  You still have a terabyte drive when this is all done for.  You'll want to completely reformat from scratch ... but no need to hurry on that.

Did you try this?

 - Western Digital hard drive, visit http://www.wdc.com/en/ and search for the Data Lifeguard Diagnostic

It's simple & will give info back on your SMART.  Also, when it's time, it's a good utility to perform a low-level format.

Still don't know what OS you're using (or what recovery utility).  This used to be a great little utility.  Ancient, but simple:

 - Restoration - http://www.snapfiles.com/get/restoration.HTML

IMPORTANT: if Restoration finds files and you want to recover them, they MUST be recovered to a different drive than the one they are on.  If you attempt to recover them back to the same drive, they will start over-writing the data you are attempting to recover.


And, you've already D/L'd these torrents once; no need to do it a second time on your profile.  Collect the URLs in a text file or bookmark, then logout of your account and re-download them off your profile.  This is a situation where you can use the public tracker option of the tracker.  Nobody is going to hate you or ban you for getting copies of stuff you lost under these conditions, especially if you have a rough time keeping ratio due to your Internet connection..

[GoGeTa006]

.
Good News is that you don't seem to have a mechanical failure.  You should have a fair bit of opportunity to attempt different recovery options, although that part still looks grim.  You still have a terabyte drive when this is all done for.  You'll want to completely reformat from scratch ... but no need to hurry on that.

Did you try this?

 - Western Digital hard drive, visit http://www.wdc.com/en/ and search for the Data Lifeguard Diagnostic

It's simple & will give info back on your SMART.  Also, when it's time, it's a good utility to perform a low-level format.

Still don't know what OS you're using (or what recovery utility).  This used to be a great little utility.  Ancient, but simple:

 - Restoration - http://www.snapfiles.com/get/restoration.HTML

IMPORTANT: if Restoration finds files and you want to recover them, they MUST be recovered to a different drive than the one they are on.  If you attempt to recover them back to the same drive, they will start over-writing the data you are attempting to recover.


And, you've already D/L'd these torrents once; no need to do it a second time on your profile.  Collect the URLs in a text file or bookmark, then logout of your account and re-download them off your profile.  This is a situation where you can use the public tracker option of the tracker.  Nobody is going to hate you or ban you for getting copies of stuff you lost under these conditions, especially if you have a rough time keeping ratio due to your Internet connection..

I used R-Studio, from what I read on the internet its one of the best recovery utilities. . .I tried migo digital rescue but it wouldnt recognize hard drives that were not initiated, so I switched to R-Studio which seems pretty legit. . .

Ill try that WD thing you posted. . .lets see where it goes

[DmonHiro]

1. Do NOT write anything on the disk.
2. Check the connector cable. Use a different cable and see if it works.
3. If 2 fails, try to connect the HDD to the PC INTERNALLY.

Step 3 worked for me last week in the exact same situation as yours.

[kitamesume]

1. Do NOT write anything on the disk.
2. Check the connector cable. Use a different cable and see if it works.
3. If 2 fails, try to connect the HDD to the PC INTERNALLY.

Step 3 worked for me last week in the exact same situation as yours.

1.) already done (duh, hes been doing it since first post)
2.) its connected to the pc internally after disassembling the external enclosure.
3.) duh?

question: did you just skip the whole thread?

[Lupin]

So I have my external WD hard drive 1 TB. . .prolly 600 GB full of anime. . . anyways suddenly it stopped working. . .it started by slowing down. . .after a while it would sometimes freeze when I browsed tru the folders and suddenly now it wants to reformat cause I cant use it if I dont format it first. . .so I took it out of the enclosure and put it into my PC, now . . .I know theres 600 GB of anime in there. . .and Im in the disk manager on windows, and it shows 930 GB unallocated space. . .I can add a "new simple volume" with the max capacity but . . .Im afraid if I do that it will reformat the drive and erase all my info which I am too scared to do. . .
I could try one of those data-recovery programs but I dont have anywhere to store 600 GB of data. . .

any takers?

Im in a little state of panic TBH

Is that external drive a My Book? A WD Elements? Is it encrypted?

[GoGeTa006]

So I have my external WD hard drive 1 TB. . .prolly 600 GB full of anime. . . anyways suddenly it stopped working. . .it started by slowing down. . .after a while it would sometimes freeze when I browsed tru the folders and suddenly now it wants to reformat cause I cant use it if I dont format it first. . .so I took it out of the enclosure and put it into my PC, now . . .I know theres 600 GB of anime in there. . .and Im in the disk manager on windows, and it shows 930 GB unallocated space. . .I can add a "new simple volume" with the max capacity but . . .Im afraid if I do that it will reformat the drive and erase all my info which I am too scared to do. . .
I could try one of those data-recovery programs but I dont have anywhere to store 600 GB of data. . .

any takers?

Im in a little state of panic TBH

Is that external drive a My Book? A WD Elements? Is it encrypted?

it was a Western Digital MyBook
and it wasnt encripted

[Lupin]

it was a Western Digital MyBook

This is some very late advice but I think a possible solution to the issue was to connect the drive to another My Book enclosure (that have similar firmware). If I'm not mistaken, drive encryption is hardwired to the enclosure. Even though you didn't use encryption, it still encrypts data it writes to the drive. That's why you don't see anything when you connected the internal drive to your computer. Odds are you had a broken enclosure and a corrupted partition table.

[GoGeTa006]

it was a Western Digital MyBook

This is some very late advice but I think a possible solution to the issue was to connect the drive to another My Book enclosure (that have similar firmware). If I'm not mistaken, drive encryption is hardwired to the enclosure. Even though you didn't use encryption, it still encrypts data it writes to the drive. That's why you don't see anything when you connected the internal drive to your computer. Odds are you had a broken enclosure and a corrupted partition table.

maybe. . .
I already formatted it and "wrote zeros" to fix the bad sectors, the hard drive now is A-Ok according to the WD thingy. . .

questions for the afterlife:

Who killed kaji?
What really happened to my hard drive?

[chubbysumo]

Have you tried the Freezer trick OP?  Put it in the freezer for about 15 minutes, and then recover what you can.  Its worth a shot, as it seems the drive itself is going bad.