How do i fix unknown, not initialized and unallocated external hd?

[200naveen]

Please help me to get my important data from my bad hard disk,

I have a segate 500 GB usb external HDD, It was working fine since last 3 years. yesterday i connect this to a XP machine, and start coping some data. the coping speed was very slow, so I restarted the machine in between. After that I LOST MY hdd, it never be back. I tried a lot.. no success till now.
Please help me get my data back:

 

[Mark Phelps]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news ... but I had almost exactly the same thing happen to me on a Seagate 2TB hard drive. Working for months, even passing surface checks with no errors and then, one day -- "bad disk".

I've tried every data recovery app I could find against it (4 of them) and none of them find anything.

I've had drives fail me over the years and have never run into this situation where the drive powers up but NOTHING can be recovered from it.

So, I've resorted to sending it off to a local data recovery outfit

 

[200naveen]

The Local data recovery outfit recovered your data??

 

[Slartybart]

Mark is probably right, but run Seatools just as a quick test

Try SeaTools for DOS first
Download SeaTools DOS | Documentation (PDF)


If you have problems with the DOS version (some people do for an unknown reason), try the Windows version
Download SeaTools Windows | Documentation (PDF)

Run these tests:
Short Drive Self Test (DST)
Long Generic
-> do not select repair, you just want to see what SeaTools reports

Post a screen shot of the results.

 

[200naveen]

SeaTools is unable to find the HDD

Hello Slartybart,

Sea tool in unable to scan the Bad disk, The Bad disk is shown in Disk management only, here it is showing Unknown and Not Initalized...Unallocated.

When I try to Initalized disk it showing error " The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error."

Mark is probably right, but run Seatools just as a quick test

Try SeaTools for DOS first
Download SeaTools DOS | Documentation (PDF)


If you have problems with the DOS version (some people do for an unknown reason), try the Windows version
Download SeaTools Windows | Documentation (PDF)

Run these tests:
Short Drive Self Test (DST)
Long Generic
-> do not select repair, you just want to see what SeaTools reports

Post a screen shot of the results.

 

[200naveen]

Gurus any solution

Hello Gurus, any solution of my problem, I posted screen shoot in last post..

 

[jumanji]

At the outset, let me say that there may not be much hope in recovering any data from your external hard drive as a DIY project.

There is something mysterious in your last screenshot. Your Seagate is shown as having a 8MB CDFS partition in the disk listing.

Let us see if we can atleast format your drive.

Please post a new and untruncated full screenshot of Windows Disk Management with only the problem HDD plugged into the PC.

(Please remove all other USB storage devices including pen drives, USB hubs if any and USB card readers.

Go to the top toolbar in the disk management window, the click on "Show/Hide Console Tree" and "Show/Hide Action Pane" icons to hide those. If necessary lift the horizontal divider bar above the disk map up as far as it can go without cutting into the Disk List so that we can see the full disk Map. In short a full screenshot with nothing obscured or truncated.)

 

[Layback Bear]

Please use this tutorial by Brink so members can see what is needed.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/274797-disk-management-post-screen-capture-image.html

 

[200naveen]

Hello jumanji and other friends,

please have a look in the attached screen shoot of my bad disk and suggest the next course of action:

 

[jumanji]

OK, Naveen.

Your screenshot does confirm that your Seagate drive now does have a CDFS partition. It also gets a drive letter D. But how come is the question. It was not there before in the screenshot in your first post. Can you think of anything that could have brought about this?

Let me think about it and see whether something strikes.

For now I am going to bed as you will. ( Are you in USA or you haven't changed the time zone.)

 

[200naveen]

Jumanji, When i plugged in the drive it was showing CDFS, but after some time automatically it showing unallocated space..

 

[jumanji]

OK. One reason why Seatools is not seeing your external drive may be because there is that mysterious CDFS partition on that drive.

Before trying to format the drive, let us see whether Linux booted from a pen drive can see your external
disk and whether Gparted in it can see the CDFS partition and delete it.

For the present unplug your problem external drive.

Download Lucid Puppy (Ubuntu-Compatible Build) lupu-528.005.iso I have chosen this because it is only a 132.6 MB download. http://puppylinux.org/main/Download%...%20Release.htm Create your bootable pen drive with this ISO using Rufus 1.4.10 (616KB) Rufus - Create bootable USB drives the easy way (Before you run Rufus, backup all data on your pendrive for it will be lost when Rufus formats the pendrive during the creation process.)

Once you are ready, shut down your PC, plug in your problem Seagate drive
and boot from Live Linux Lucid Puppy USB pen drive.

Check whether your problem Seagate drive is seen by Linux and report.

For familiarising with Lucid Puppy read
http://www.sevenforums.com/software/198909-lucid-puppy-way-recover-files-non-bootable-computer.html

In that thread,

You will only see the screenshots from the time Lucid Puppy boots to the point where and how to identify your system drive and the external HDD . Your external HDD may or may not appear and that is what we are trying to ascertain.

Just report whether your 500 GB Seagate external drive is seen.