Windows 7: Toshiba Portable 500 Gb Hard Drive Error: Volume is dirty 0x80071AC3

Hi,
My name is Yannik. I have a Toshiba 500 Gb Portable (external) Hard Drive that had information on it but for some unknown reason, when I plugged it, the computer asked me to reformat the drive so I did. After that, I thought it would work fine but when I tried to access the Hard drive,, I couldn't because a message appeared that I needed to check/scan it because there's was a problem: A Hard Drive Error: Volume is dirty 0x80071AC3 If I either try the two option below:
1) Automatically fix file system errors
2) Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors
I waited and waited for over 2 hours and nothing happened, it was still at "0" Free cluster processed!
My question is: Do you know how to fix this issue?

It can take quite some considerable time for this command to complete, particularly with large drives and more so if it has a lot of work to do. Leave it running overnight and see what it has got up to tomorrow.

Hi Dwarf,
Thank you for the response. I started a scan to fix the issue but it's 36 hours and it's only at 2% approx! Ii doesn't make sense that it's slow like that or does it? Do you have a suggestion?
Thanks in advance

So it's made some progress. That's good, even though it is slow. Just let it complete. I'm sorry that I can't give you a timescale on this, as it depends on what problems it comes across and how long it takes to correct them (if it can). Just to put this in persepective, the commercial program Spinrite from GRC.com (Steve Gibson) has been known to take a week (or more) to scan a disk.

Assuming you're running CHKDSK?

It sounds like it's finding a lot of sector failure & trying to deal with it. A sure sign that the hd is going South.

A faster method, to make sure, is to run the disk manufacturers' bootup diagnostic. With the help of a friend's pc (assuming you don't have two separate working units), download & burn to cd their utility. Report back.

I've personally run CHDSK on problematic drive and, when it was a simple filesystem corruption error (as in unsafe removal of an external drive), the program ran very quickly -- only took a few minutes.

When I had the program run quickly and then grind to a halt (which sound like what yours is doing), I quit CHKDSK and ran the drive manufacturer's utility on it -- and in all cases, it found serious damage, as in, lots of bad sectors. In some cases the drive utility ran for hours and then simply gave up -- with a message something like too many errors found.

Hi and thank you both Dwarf & Pscowboy!
It has been a little over 2 days and the proccess is still going but at a ridiculous low speed and I consider my computer to be quite powerful and up to date. The first time I've wrote to you, ot was at 2% approximately and now, I would estimate it at 4-5%. Like you said Dwarf, it will probably take a week but if it freezes in 6 days or at 90%, I will go nuts, lol .

Pscowboy, about running a disk manufacturers' bootup diagnostic, I'm not too familiar how to do that! On my Toshiba 500Gb Portable Hard Drive, I never used their software to backup my data because I found it easier just to drag & drop or cut/paste stuff I like. My tablet was almost full. Few days ago, I went to plugged my tablet to my Desktop Pc and for some reason, there was a problem and I needed to format so I did. When everything was deleted, I tried to send (cut/paste) a file to my Hard drive but it failed due a Drive Error: Volume is dirty 0x80071AC3. I had only two choice: Automatically fix file system errors or Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors, so I tried the first one and it's been 2 days but it has not froze nor stopped! It is very bizarre how slow the proccess goes but I kind of don't want to unplug it because it has been so long! Thank you.

You're welcome, Yannik. Hopefully, everything will turn out fine and you will get your disk back (eventually). Like I said before, a time limit cannot be put on this since it depends on what it finds as it's doing the scan; nor can any guarantee be given as to whether it succeeds or not. I'm afraid it's just a waiting game.

As I'm not trying to regain information, but instead I try to repair to error problem so I can reuse my Portable Hard Drive again to backup information, I'm wondering if there is other alternative that would be faster, like a software or something?

I would never trust a drive showing such symptoms to ever be safe to use (unless the errors can be traced to the box\connection\interface. Take the drive out of the box and try it in another setup).