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Old 11-07-2018, 01:33 PM
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External HD problem, W'7 Pro and XP pro

I had a problem over the weekend with mu Toshiba 2T HD (with as many images, etc - close to my last 20 y3ars of life on that drive)..
It first stated with one sub-folder being corrupted from W'7 point of view..
I decided to ignore this for a moment... and then after some time I shut down the system.

Next day - disaster - the whole HD was inaccessible and possibly corrupted.. and W'7 suggested formatting. Which I refused of course.
I decided to try with my lap running XP Pro...


This time, XP invoked CheckDisk and it suggested disc scan and fix..
After 6 hours of doing it's job, my HD came back on line with (apparently) everything intact (it seems the subfolder that failed in first place has some files missing... but this is not an issue at all).

Anyways... Who wants to upgrade to w'10 ??

Last edited by bojan; 11-07-2018 at 04:58 PM.
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  #2  
Old 11-07-2018, 03:00 PM
AndrewJ
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Gday Bojan
There are several good disk checking utilities.
I learned of these whilst trying to recover from a HDD with a corrupt registry.
I used Passmark DiskCheckup allow me to see all the SMART data for the drive and hence see if something was getting ready to fail.
( and it was )
Andrew
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  #3  
Old 11-07-2018, 03:43 PM
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Originally Posted by AndrewJ View Post
I used Passmark DiskCheckup allow me to see all the SMART data for the drive and hence see if something was getting ready to fail.
( and it was )
Andrew
That's a cool utility. I used something similar in the past called HD Tune Pro. Keeping a tab on the SMART attributes is great. Best change the drive as soon as one of them gets flagged. I've had Win7 pro on this PC since 2010 and probably changed the boot drive 4 or 5 times and the two other data drives once or twice. Only in one instance did the boot drive packed it without warning out of the blue. But otherwise the SMART data always prompted me ahead.

Last edited by multiweb; 11-07-2018 at 04:03 PM.
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Old 11-07-2018, 10:45 PM
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Why not just get the best HDD Maintenance & Recovery program to start with?
> https://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

(NB: I have no affiliation to grc or spinrite... I just use the program.....occasionally.)
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Old 12-07-2018, 04:36 AM
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My problem with commercial programs is they exist because MS doesn't provide (any more.. they refuse or don't know how or there is some sort of collusion...) utilities to fix it's own issues and problems, as demonstrated (again) with what happened to my HD's.

In the past once I couldn't access 1TB drive after physical (?) damage (it fell on the floor while working with XP, but linux had no problems (I discovered that by accident when in desperation attached that drive to TV set (linux) and discovered there was no issues, so I managed to salvage everything).
Anyway, my solution to this hassle will be copying everything to 3TB drive and then re-formatting the old one and use it as archive.


Call me grumpy old man, call me what you want.. but no clouds.... and definitely no commercial utilities for me.
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Old 12-07-2018, 06:58 AM
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definitely no commercial utilities for me.
The passmark app is free for personal use. ;-)


Andrew
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Old 12-07-2018, 07:09 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RAJAH235 View Post
Why not just get the best HDD Maintenance & Recovery program to start with?
> https://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm
If you have a failing drive then Spinrite would be the last thing that I would try for data recovery. Here's one explanation (of several if you go looking): https://www.disktuna.com/spinrite-is...very-software/
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Old 12-07-2018, 12:28 PM
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The passmark app is free for personal use. ;-)
Andrew

Thank you, I will try it :-)

However, it seems it can't repair the disk?
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Old 12-07-2018, 04:27 PM
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Gday Bojan
Correct, it is only a diagnostic tool that allows you to see if a drive is getting unstable.
True data recovery of a damaged disk is a black art.
Things like chkdsk will isolated damaged sectors etc, but if the disk is dying, thats only a stopgap.


Andrew
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Old 12-07-2018, 06:26 PM
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I think changing HDs every 2 to 3 years as maintenance is sensible.
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  #11  
Old 17-07-2018, 08:21 AM
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Spinrite can work in some circumstances but can also cause more damage, just like any repair tools, if you "just use them" but dont understand the failing in the first place. Its tedious trying to educate people anymore, I used to provide a hard drive recovery service (not forensic grade but a method that properly uses these programs). I rarely bother anymore, not all damaged disks are actually damaged its often an ignorant assumption by the user. A common bad practice that corrupts drives is people just unplugging external drives instead of "ejecting/dismounting it" via the operating system. Its there for a reason.

Did you end up losing much at all Bojan?
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Old 17-07-2018, 10:24 AM
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...
Did you end up losing much at all Bojan?

Actually, nothing was lost, I suspect only one file that was placed in subfolder which was reported corrupted at the beginning of this saga (immediatelly before shutdown... then I removed the disk and tried to use it with lap (w'7 Home edition) when the problem started).

This weekend I copied everything on 3TB drive (36 hours!), and I had only 2 or 3 problems, like "too long file name" (name was actually quite short, like GMB or similar to that) and yesteday there was "corrupted Recycle bin"... It seems to be OK now.

Otherwise everything else is still there.
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Old 17-07-2018, 11:16 AM
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So you intend to still use it? Hook it up to a Windows machine and format the drive (UNTICK the Quick Format option, as that prevents an actual format of the drive). It'll probably take a day or two to format 3TB but a full windows format like this I've found is reliable to test if the drive is safe to use. If it fails for any reason, do not rely on it for anything, I just bin immediately but if it succeeds its a good sign it'll be stable as the process writes and verifies every single sector, its not a repair process but like I said often a "failed" drive is not realy a hardware fault. So a non-quick window format is a good confidence check, and something I do to every new drive I buy before using as its a finicky formatter so any hint of a problem with the drive will cause it to fail whereas drive formatting tools can persistently force dodgy sectors to take a format or just map them out which is a cop out in my mind. You dont need anything fancy. I havent tested DOS or Linux formatting but in recovering drives Ive ended up with tons of drives to test for reliability. This is the best and fastest way to get an accurate idea of current health of drive. SMART can be deceptive as brand new drives usually show some errors, its common that all drives show some errors (HDD, I havent had extensive SSD experience to say similar). I would use large drive with a failure history but format fine as say a page file/temp space drive where software can write temp files during processing and I could periodically format the drive without losing data and keep an eye on its stability.
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Old 17-07-2018, 12:53 PM
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Yes, that was my intention - to format it and use it.
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Old 23-07-2018, 01:26 PM
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cool, as above full format (not quick) on any windows pc first as a reliabilty test of the physical drive being undamaged. Then put on whatever machine you want and format as you normally would on your operating system. This gives a strong confidence the drive is not faulty.

I'm sure Bojan already knows what to do but wanted to reiterate this here for others to find, I'm sure many have possibly dead drives sitting on shelves that really are not faulty. I also use Teracopy to replace my windows copy process so I copy with a validation step to test file integrity just as an early safeguard from developing faults. Takes longer to copy files but I feel its worth it to be sure my data is intact.
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Old 23-07-2018, 03:56 PM
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I also use Teracopy
If I had any standing in a Church, I'd nominate the author(s) of Teracopy for Sainthood. It has literally doubled my effective working hours. One can leave a copy task overnight, and know that stupid hiccups won't invalidate the process. In the morning, the hiccups can be attended to, with the other 99% done.
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