How do I remount a drive CHKDSK unmounted?

Annaa · 04 Mar 2017

Hi everyone,

I bought a new external hard drive a few weeks ago, this 1,5 To WD Elements model. Earlier today, I connected it to my Windows 7 laptop using a short USB cable for the first time [edit for clarity: been using the drive for a month, and it was my first time using that particular cable with it]. The copy from the HD to the laptop worked, but the copy from the laptop to the HD seemed to block or was very slow. When I canceled it (and I had to click several times to get the SuperCopier window to close), there was kind of a metallic "shtick!", an unpleasant noise. I did it twice, with the same result.

I ejected the drive, then plugged it back in using its usual USB cable instead. It said there was a problem and the drive needed to be checked. I said OK; it said it needed to unmounted it, again: OK, and off it went. After about 30 minutes, I realized this was gonna take something like 36 hours (the drive is full), so I cancelled (I clicked Cancel, the progress bar vanished but the window remained open, then after maybe 20 seconds, I clicked on the little red cross - is that what you call it? - and it closed).

Problem: Windows won't let me eject the drive, it says it's being used. But it's also not letting me access it, and Disk Management shows it as if it were empty. I guess CHKDSK didn't remount it on its own? So what do I do now, is there a procedure to remount it? Or should I just unplug the cable?

Oh, and the LED has been blinking constantly as if I were reading/writing something. It's been over an hour now! Also, explorer.exe is using an unusual lot of memory.

ETA: could it be that the procedure actually hasn't stopped? There doesn't seem to be an event for it in the event log yet. Would a cancelled CHKDSK show up in it?

Any advice? Thanks!

johncorosz · 04 Mar 2017

What is the make/model of your external drive? Did it work fine at first? Did you run Windows update and check device manager?

Annaa · 04 Mar 2017

Amazon says: "Item model number: WDBU6Y0015BBK-EESN"

I've had it for almost a month, and it was working very well. I really think that short USB cable today did something... Or it would be a pretty big coincidence...

Unfortunately I've had Windows Update disabled since November until I'm done fixing a few problems (which include backups of course).

The LED is still blinking, and the memory usage still very high.

What do you mean by "check device manager"?

johncorosz · 04 Mar 2017

To view non-Plug and Play devices, open Device Manager and choose Show Hidden Devices from the View menu. In the default Devices By Type view, the formerly hid¬den devices will appear under the Non-Plug And Play Drivers branch.
To view devices that were once installed but are no longer attached to the computer, open a Command Prompt window using the Run As Administrator option and enter the command:
SET DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1
Then, from the same command prompt, type devmgmt.msc to open Device Manager. Choose View, Show Hidden Devices. The new instance of Device Manager will show “ghosted” entries for devices that were once present. This technique is especially useful for fixing problems caused by leftover drivers after replacing a network card or video card—you can easily delete the ghosted device.
To see advanced details about a device, open the properties dialog box for the device and look on the Details tab. The value shown under Device Instance Id is especially useful for tracking down devices that are detected incorrectly. The full details for a device ID shown here can be found in the registry, under HKLM\System\Current-ControlSet\Enum. Although we don’t recommend idly deleting found keys, this information might provide enough information to figure out why a device isn’t being identified properly.

Setting the DEVMGR environment variable as described here affects only the instance of Device Manager launched from that Command Prompt window. If you want the change to be persistent, open Control Panel, open System, click Advanced System Settings, click Environment Variables on the Advanced tab, and define a new variable for this setting. If you add the variable to the User Variables section, the setting will apply only to the current user. If you edit the System Variables section, the extra information will be visible in Device Man¬ager for all users of the current computer.

Also...Western Digital Support Tools: Software and Firmware Downloads | WD Support

Annaa · 05 Mar 2017

Ok, a quick summary of the latest developments:

1) 7:44 pm yesterday: I plug the drive in with the good cable after the "shtick!" noises, there's an event 55 in the event observer:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: NTFS
Event ID: 55
Description:
The file system structure on disk is corrupt and unusable. Please run the chkdsk utility on the volume H:

I okay the CHKDSK.

2) around 8:15 pm: I cancel the CHKDSK, but something is still happening that prevents me from doing anything.

3) 4 am: the LED is still blinking, the memory usage still very high.

4) 11 am, when I get up: the LED has stopped blinking, the memory usage is back to normal, I can access the drive normally when I click its letter, copy to and from it works.

***

I unplugged and replugged it, it's still working normally. I checked a few random files, everything appears to be normal.

I haven't done that Device Manager procedure johncorosz recommended yet. I see he was banned... Do I still need to do that?

Also, do I need to check the drive further? And is there any way to make it faster? How do people do now that we have much bigger drives?