Dead external drive help please?

[Gizmo]

Hubby's external drive (seagate 500gb 9SD2A4-500) was fine at the weekend when we used it for music at the party. We don't remember who shut down the PC or whether it was ejected safely or not. (yes, I know, tut tut!)

Now it failed to play some files at work on today and looking at them they showed up as read only and not having admin privileges he couldn't reset that flag.

he's brought it home and its now corrupted in some form and is saying it needs to be formatted and can't access the drive at all.

We have tried 3 different leads, XP professional at work, and three home computers running Win 7.

Any ideas? Or any free data recovery software that can get past the "unformatted" issue?

Its not the end of the world but its damn annoying. I think it might *just* be a year old too.

[Andara Bledin]

First, check the cable. It's probably not it, but best to mark it off, first.

After that, make sure your BIOS and drivers are up to date. This is kind of a long shot, as well, but it's good to be up to date regardless.

Finally, this seems to be an issue with that drive when used on a computer other than the one it's usually attached to; I found several threads about it, but none with a resolution, unfortunately.

^-.-^

[Der Cute]

Andara is on the right track. GET A NEW EXTERNAL DRIVE SAME SIZE OR LARGER. It isn't a happy camper and is trying to die.
Ok. USB from drive to PC, make sure it's on a main USB port - ass end of the mobo. Good. Make sure both ends are nice and tight. Make sure the drive has full power; happy green light.

Sometimes I've had that "corrupted you're not worthy" happen and what I do is disconnect the drive, let it lose power. All the way off. Reboot the PC a few times. (this way the PC doesn't see the drive for a bit). Reconnect the drive when the PC is on, let the PC "discover it".
Get to the cmd window. Get to the drive letter of F? whatever the external is.
run the command of chkdsk /r /f
that checks for errors and repairs them (slightly).
I will say that once the drive starts doing this, it isn't a happy camper and is trying to die. After the chkdsk is done it will show errors and stuff. Bleh. So what.

Transfer the stuff straight over to the new drive. Seriously, a "move". Once it's on the new drive, you can futz with the security part. I'm saying save your data now. If you're not using it at all - keep it powered off, why have it run if you're not using it.

Easiest way I can think of is get into Safe Mode, you're 'god' there, and do the transfer.

If you're in regular mode:
IF something doesn't want to move "you don't have authority", try "Run as Administrator" first.
If not, go to the folder that's it all in. Right click, properties. Security tab. Highlight your name, make sure in the bottom window you're as high as you can get authority wise.
Go to the Advanced button on the bottom right. Click that. Highlight your name, make sure it's set to god admin stuff.

Let us know. Soon.

[Gizmo]

He can't run in safe mode at work unfortunately. He's trying it at work again today to see and I do have a friend whose offered to do data recovery on it later in the month if we want.

We've tried three different leads - two of which I know are working as I've used them for other stuff lately.

There is nothing of real note on there that we can't do without as its mostly music from CD's we own so we'd have to recopy the last years worth again.

Is suspect the answer will be "no" but as its just under a year old we might see if they will refund us for it.

I'll try the other things tonight (and see if I can transfer the stuff to the 1TB drive we've got if I can get it working).

Thanks guys.

[Der Cute]

Oh. It's an external portable, he takes to work for sumthin.
Uh, the last drive that went wonky like that was a Seagate. That's why I had the advice/experience. No, no brand is best, it's Ford/Chevy/Dodge. Doesn't matter, some break some don't. (Shit, I've seen a 20gb hard drive still running)

If you send it in for a refund, you'll lose data, just sayin'. Your laws there are different about refunds etc. My experience here was to call and say to Seagate "Oh guys it's bork, it's within warranty". I'd be told, ok ok fine, here's a new one, track number and 'don't put your main data on it' . I kept telling them This isn't a backup/important, it holds "shit". Three times. After that 3rd time, I tossed the HDD in my parts box.

The more times you plug it in and irritate it the less chance you have of pulling the data, IMO.
Wait til it gets home, you have another drive, and go. Don't use it until you have a way to copy it.

get into Safe Mode, you're 'god' there, and do the transfer to the other drive.

[Gizmo]

Yeah, work its kinda working but hes brought it home and at the weekend we will boot up the one XP laptop we have in the house (older one) in safe mode and try to get the data off asap. Its being left alone and not used now until we try that.

None of the data is unrecoverable from other sources luckily and he still has the stack of music he's put on it recently out so it should be easy to reput on another drive if it comes to it.

[PepperElf]

I'd personally recommend two things if you can use (or afford) them. WiebeTech connectors and Carbon Copy Cloner. Assuming of course you can find someone who has a Mac who'll help you out. (CCC is mac only IIRC)


However it's a pretty good combo. WT usually deals with forensic-grade hardware (legal to own) and CCC is a hard-drive backup program that can make complete copies of your HDD. (including hidden files, including making it bootable).

I've used it to port my data/files/everything from my old mac to a replacement HDD.

And I've also used it to rescue data from failed drives too. I can't guarantee it'll always work but the last time I tried ... after being connected to the drive for about 5 minutes, my computer reported that it COULD access the data, despite the drive being failed.

It took a few hours (I shut everything else off except Finder & CCC) but the data was rescued & put onto a new HDD.


As for permanent external drives, I would recommend a Drobo setup, if you can afford. one. I sure as fuck can't. But it's pretty much a RAID system. So if the data is important then this will be a great way to protect it from future issues.

[emax4]

I second CCC, for what it's worth.

You might be able to remove it from the shell and mount it internally, assuming you have a desktop PC and not a laptop or notebook. When mounted internally it's a bit faster and you won't have to worry about ejecting it anymore.

[Gizmo]

Just to update on this:

We weren't able to get the other XP computer to read it at all in the end - It wouldn't even detect it was there.

He took it back to the seller on Sunday and at 11.5 months they didn't blink about replacing it (and didn't even send it away for checking!). I was slightly shocked actually that it was so easy.

So later this week he's going to start restoring from the other sources on a new hard drive. He didn't feel right asking to keep the dead drive for the data recovery and its not going to be a huge amount of work. His new one claims to be 'shockproof' etc but I've told him to keep a regular backup of it.

Thanks all.

[Der Cute]

Someone turned me on to this and I've crowed it's glory since: http://www.crashplan.com/

My puter got hoseded. Big time. Reinstall OS from scratch kind. Crashplan had my shit. All of it. I pulled down bits and parts and data I wanted, and it was all good. I'm serious.

I pay for mine, I think $50/yr? ish for it, (dunno) but it's worth it.