Seagate 2TB Hard Drive not responding, stops programs from working

It would seem that your drive has developed too many bad sectors that Windows has difficulty in reading.

As you have seen even MFT and MFT mirror is corrupted. This is because of bad sectors gobbling it up.

Under these conditions Macrium Reflect even if it succeeds in cloning the drive will only clone the faulty drive as it is and that wouldn't help. Now you have seen Macrium Reflect couldn't even read the drive. Thanks for the feedback.

If you are intent on getting maximum data possible from your defective drive , your only option now is to try to clone that drive with ddrescue and once the cloning process is over, try data recovery on the cloned drive, may be live Linux.

This is a long drawn process and depending upon how fast your drive is deteriorating and has already deteriorated, you may be able to recover some more files than what you have recovered already but not all the files. It would depend upon how many bad sectors ddrescue was able to recover and straighten out those files.

If you want to take this route and try cloning with ddrescue, follow this thread
https://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/334762-how-do-i-recover-data-non-responsive-hard-drive.html We are on the verge of doing ddrescue clone. That information should help you do it.

Good Luck.

Okay, regarding the ddrescue method.

I would need to have an empty hard drive that has more space that the faulty drive, right?

I don't have an empty drive handy and I cannot simply just empty any of my current drives. So that method is no go?

Yes, when cloning you are going to do a sector to sector copying. So that drive should have minimum as many writable sectors as your source drive.

Anyway, wait to see how things progress in the other thread. You can take cues from that thread.

And so there you go.

Please do not go for a destination drive more than 2TB.

I had this doubt suddenly and started editing my post stating " more than 2 TB" but let it remain till there is clarity on the issue and advised you to watch the other thread and take cues.

Simultaneously this issue came up on the other thread. So the verdict destination drive not more than 2TB.
I have since edited my post #12 deleting "or greater".

Different brands of 2TB drive can have a slightly more or less number of total sectors. If it is less it will spoil the broth.

So go in for the same brand, same capacity drive for your destination drive.

That's the utmost caution I can suggest.

Now in the second command Anshad may recommend writing the log file to the pendrive. In your case it will be advantageous since it will leave all 2TB free for cloning.

So for the second command in ddrescue go by what Anshad recommends in the other thread.

And if you need any further clarifications you may raise the issue on the other thread stating you have a similar problem with a 2 TB drive (give full details of the drive and reference to this thread) and what make and capacity drive you should buy for the destination drive for cloning. He will be the best person to advise with his on-hand experience.

Hello jumanji,

Just got the items needed to clone the faulty hard drive.

For the nomenclature of the drives, would they just be either "sdb" or "sdc" or something else? I'm not sure what the nomenclature should be.

And is it possible to use Windows or another OS with ddrescue running in the background or does the computer have to be stuck displaying the command prompt?

And is it possible to use Windows or another OS with ddrescue running in the background or does the computer have to be stuck displaying the command prompt?

Unfortunately you can't use the system for any other thing until the cloning finishes. Cloning a 2TB disk with lot of bad sectors may take a lot of time - probably more than 24 hours. In your case, NTFS structure seems to be damaged (MFT corruption ) so cloning alone won't be enough. After the cloning succeeds, we may need to rescue data from the cloned copy using recovery tools. But let's focus on successfully completing the cloning task first.

For the nomenclature of the drives, would they just be either "sdb" or "sdc" or something else? I'm not sure what the nomenclature should be.

Usually the disk connected to SATA port 1 will be "sda" and 2 will be "sdb". But we should check it and confirm first. Please follow the below steps.

1. Make sure to connect the failing disk to SATA port one ( or zero in some boards ).

2. Make sure to connect the new HDD to SATA port two.

Make sure there are no other disks connected to the system ( other than the source and destination disks ).

3. Boot the system using "System rescue CD" and enter the below command exactly.

fdisk -l

You need to take a clear screenshot of the output with a digital cam or smart phone and post it with next reply.

Unfortunately you can't use the system for any other thing until the cloning finishes. Cloning a 2TB disk with lot of bad sectors may take a lot of time - probably more than 24 hours. In your case, NTFS structure seems to be damaged (MFT corruption ) so cloning alone won't be enough. After the cloning succeeds, we may need to rescue data from the cloned copy using recovery tools. But let's focus on successfully completing the cloning task first.

What about the DDRescue-GUI for linux?

Make sure there are no other disks connected to the system ( other than the source and destination disks ).

Do I have to disconnect the internal hard drive?

I'm running something right now so it'd be inconvenient for me to reboot, but I did the "fdisk -l" in terminal in linux and got this:

fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
102 heads, 51 sectors/track, 187768 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000001

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 51 268428401 134214175+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2 268428402 976769135 354170367 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 268428453 976769135 354170341+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
Note: sector size is 4096 (not 512)

Disk /dev/sdc: 2000.4 GB, 2000398929920 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30400 cylinders, total 488378645 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 4096 = 4096 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xf48020e0

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 63 3907024127 2743194372 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

Disk /dev/sdd: 2000.4 GB, 2000398931968 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders, total 3907029164 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xf48020e0

Is the above informative enough or do you need me to reboot and do the "fdisk -l"?

I'm not sure which ports are which so I tried different methods of finding out which dev was which drive. I'm guessing that the sdd is the faulty and the sdc is the new drive. (I did "fdisk -l" with the faulty drive not connected and got only the sdc part).

@Anshad Edavana,

I think OP's faulty disk and the one he got now to clone are both external drives.

OP may please confirm this Anshad. You are in best hands now.

Yes, my faulty drive is the Seagate 2TB external hard drive. The one I just got to clone the faulty drive on is also a 2TB external hard drive (similar type but I think it is slightly different somehow).