Hard drive repair options

[synthc]

I have a 3 TB drive that I've been having trouble with (volumes dismount randomly and don't show up until restart). I recently replaced it and I decided to clean the drive in diskpart to see if I could get it working correctly; after cleaning it windows now sees only 746 GB (no ~2000 GB leftovers), this is not surprising for a 3 TB drive so I set it to GPT, but the other space still doesn't show up at all.

I'm guessing the other sectors are just dead, but its out of warranty and I hate to just throw away a 3 TB drive. I've tried the clean all command in diskpart as well as disconnecting and reconnecting the power. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to repair this drive? Or is it just garbage now?

 

[essenbe]

Could you please post a screenshot of disk management? http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/274797-disk-management-post-screen-capture-image.html

 

[synthc]

Attached.

 

[essenbe]

It appears you have a couple of 3 TB drives already, so you must be familiar with the NTFS file system limitations. I am not sure why your drive is showing up as only 746 GB. What I would suggest is to use diskpart again and use the clean all command. That will take several hours but should clean everything from the drive and make it ready to be formatted as GPT. Needless to say, if you have any data on the drive it will be lost by doing that.

 

[synthc]

Thanks for the reply. I have already used clean all. Even in diskpart, windows only sees the 746 GB; I'm familiar with data recovery programs, but I've never had an issue where windows won't actually see the whole drive at all. I guess what I'm looking for is some kind of program that might be able to repair the dead sectors.

 

[King Arthur]

Have you tried checking to see if a non-Windows OS (like say a distro of Linux) can see the full size of the HDD in question? If this is beyond your comfort zone you can safely ignore my inquiry, but it would help in isolating whether this problem is caused by the HDD itself or whether Windows is just being stupid.

 

[essenbe]

Yes, I'm sorry, in your first post I misread it and thought you had used the clean command. I don't know of anything that will repair bad sectors, The clean all will sometimes mark them for the drive not to write to them.

I would try the bootable Partition Wizard before burying it though. It can do a lot of things Disk management is not capable of. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/93322-partition-wizard-use-bootable-cd.html

I wouldn't discount King Arthurs suggestion either of using a Live Linux distro to see either.

 

[Slartybart]

Both King Arthur and essenbe offer good advice about getting Windows out of the equation.

I'll add a System Repair disc to the mix - boot with that and launch a Command Prompt.
Then see what Disk part recognizes.

There's also two ACTIVE partitions in your disk Management screenshot (C: and E: ). I don't know if this would affect your system in the way you describe, but there should only be one partition marked ACTIVE. Dual boots should use the same one (I think).

Which one do you keep? An easy test assuming this is an external drive, would be to disconnect Disk 1 and restart your machine. If everything starts up fine, then keep C: as the ACTIVE partition and mark E: inactive in diskpart.

If the system refuses to start or complains, reconnect Disk 1 and restart.

Another member will have to help you if E: is the current ACTIVE partition and you want to make C: the current ACTIVE partition.

Bill
.

edit: It's not clear that there are 'dead' sectors. I'm guessing that all of the work in post# 1 was done in Windows. I've seen too many drives 'fail' and have a sneaking suspicion that Windows is part of the issue. There's that and the tsunami's wrecking drive factories a year or two ago.

The 'new' Advanced format (4k sector layout), plus emulation and the large capacity drives seem to be in that "transition is a bit.." mode. I don't have any definitive evidence, just a gut feeling.

By circumventing Windows, at least initially, you might get a better reading of the disk and be able to initialize the entire space.

Testdisk is a very good disk analysis, repair program, but it has a steep learning curve.
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Livecd

Make sure that any of the Live rescue CDs listed on the page above has a fairly recent version of Testdisk if you decide to go that route. I'd suggest waiting until you've had a chance to digest 60%-80% of the Testdisk documentation.

minitool Partition Wizard, as essenbe suggested, is also powerful but is easier to use and I think better documented.

 

[synthc]

E is an old system reserved partition, I guess I had a windows installation on that drive at some point. May as well delete it, but it's only 100 MB.

I have booted from my windows disk and tried using diskpart, but I got the same results.

I'm going to run some tests with partition wizard tonight and see what it says.

 

[jumanji]

Are you using a dock for the HDDs?

 

[synthc]

Are you using a dock for the HDDs?

I am, but I've tried connecting this one directly to the motherboard just in case it was a USB issue.

 

[Slartybart]

E is an old system reserved partition, I guess I had a windows installation on that drive at some point. May as well delete it, but it's only 100 MB.

I have booted from my windows disk and tried using diskpart, but I got the same results.

I'm going to run some tests with partition wizard tonight and see what it says.

The size of E: isn't what's important, it's the ACTIVE flag on the partition.
Deleting it would work too.

Ok, thanks - Windows install disk boot and diskpart gave the same information 746 GB instead of the expected 3 TB.

Partition Wizard (PW) results later - ok.

I'll sit back for a while, it's getting late here. There are some very good people on the thread already.

Good luck,

Bill
.

 

[jumanji]

Are you using a dock for the HDDs?

I am, but I've tried connecting this one directly to the motherboard just in case it was a USB issue.

The problem could have originated when it was connected to an incompatible dock, a dock that could not handle 3 TB drives.

Till this problem is resolved please keep it connected as an internal drive and do all recommended procedures on that internal drive.

Also recommend that you disconnect the dock and all other external HDDs/pendrives so as not to get confused/confuse us .This will avoid doing any operation inadvertently on a wrong drive.

 

[synthc]

I ran a surface test and a partition scan in partition wizard, but they didn't find anything. I guess this drive is just going to be stuck as a ~750 GB drive