Computer not seeing external HDD?

[JohnnyScience]

Haven't had this issue before, it's a WD Passport 1TB HDD.

Usually these things plug right in & show up under my computer.

But even after several unplugs, trying to update the drivers (which were already up to date) and restarting the computer, my external HDD is still not showing up under my computer?

 

[Layback Bear]

Plug it into another 2.0 usb port and see if it works. You could also put something else in that port and see if it works.
Look in device manager Universal Serial Port and see if you have a problem.

 

[JohnnyScience]

Still nothing. No errors in device manager either.

Just for the record, this HDD has truecrypt installed on it, but the HDD should still be showing up under my computer with the true crypt file.

 

[marsmimar]

In addition to the excellent advice from Layback Bear you could also open Disk Management and post a maximized screenshot here. Make sure the WD is recognized and has a drive letter assigned.

How To Access Disk Management in Windows 7

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/9733-screenshots-files-upload-post-seven-forums.html

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/82994-drive-letter-add-change-remove-windows-7-a.html

 

[JohnnyScience]

Hmm, so it's showing up under Disk Management, but it says that it's RAW & when I try to assign a letter to the drive it wants to format it - which I do not want to do since there is already data on this HDD & not sure why it isn't showing up properly?

 

[marsmimar]

I don't know why the WD changed from NTFS to RAW. I know that some viruses can do that to a drive. Since you don't want to format and lose the data on this drive, the only other thing I can suggest is to use some kind of file recovery software, save the recovered data to another hard drive, then go ahead and do the format and assign a new drive letter to the WD. EaseUS is one company that offers data recovey software. The free version will recover up to 1 GB while the paid version has unlimited data recovery. Perhaps other Forum mebers will jump in with other suggestions.

Recover files from RAW external hard drive with data recovery software

How can I get Windows 7 to read RAW hard drives without having to - Microsoft Community

 

[JohnnyScience]

Well that really doesn't make sense because this HDD has been locked away in a safe far from viruses since the last time it was plugged in, loaded with Truecrypt & backed up my entire computer.

It's virtually impossible for it to have a virus.

There is no other way to fix this?

Luckily my main computer HDD hasn't crashed & I'm not relying on this backup at this time, I was just trying to update it. But if I was relying on my back up and this happened... after all of the precautions I took I would burn something down.

 

[boohbah]

have you tried plugging it into a different computer yet?

 

[JohnnyScience]

No only 1 computer at my disposal sadly...

 

[patio]

RAW generally indicates it's been removed prematurely at least once or twice from the PC...
I'm afraid it should be data recovery apps you should be researching...

 

[Britton30]

Did you decrypt the drive?

 

[JohnnyScience]

No I can't decrypt it because the computer doesn't even see the drive in order to access the file to decrypt. It's odd that it shows up under my USB drives, but it's not showing up under my computer.

I'm going to re-format this & re-copy everything with Truecrypt - I just really hope that I don't have this problem if & when I actually need the backup because my original crashes. Damn it.

 

[King Arthur]

Just curious, but what does the SMART values say about the health of the drive? I would make sure the hardware itself is reliable before you use it for backups again.

I've had an internal HDD turn from NTFS into RAW before completely out of the blue and the drive had iffy SMART values showing up (I no longer use said drive for anything crucial).

 

[JohnnyScience]

Not sure as I'm not familiar with this SMART value system. Can you provide a link for the program?

I do want to check it's reliability before making it a true backup. The thing is virtually brand new, maybe a year old & has just been in the safe for storage. I don't even keep it plugged in on a regular basis, just do my backups & store it away again.

 

[King Arthur]

I personally use CrystalDiskInfo to read SMART data on my HDDs, the program supports both internal and external HDDs.

Just download the .zip version, you can safely and easily delete the program after using it if you don't want to keep it.

Also, just in case you're wondering what the "Shizuku" edition is, that's just something that people who like anime (like me!) might be interested in; good ol' Japanese humor. For your purposes here just download the standard version.

EDIT: SMART data you should be checking in particular are "Reallocated Sector Count", "Reallocation Event Count", "Current Pending Sector Count", Uncorrectable Sector Count", "UltraDMA CRC Error Count", and "Write Error Count". If any of their raw values are not zero, they indicate that your HDD encountered some problems during its operation and that it might be dying.

 

[JohnnyScience]

I've attached the screen shots of the 2 drives, the first I believe is the WD 1tb backup that is in question of having issues.

So it should be good to go right? No issues seem to be with the drive itself. I'm going to re-run True-Crypt on it and hopefully have a successful backup.

The 2nd is my C: drive, it seems to have a caution rating to it, is this something I can fix?

 

[Layback Bear]

Just a thought. If you conceder your backup is important enough to encrypt and lock in a safe I would not use a drive that I had a doubt of any kind.

 

[King Arthur]

Regarding your WD external HDD:
SMART isn't showing any signs of problems or potential failure with the drive, that's good; by SMART itself, you probably won't have any issues with reformatting and re-using the HDD. However, the fact remains that you've experienced file system corruption resulting in data loss on this HDD, so I would recommend replacing with a new HDD if you have doubts about this HDD.

Overall: External HDD will probably function without issue once reformatted, but since the backups you've been taking on the drive appear to be crucial I advise replacing the drive at your earliest convenience if you have any doubts whatsoever about the drive.

Regarding your internal C: drive:
Now this is something you should be worried about; much moreso than your external HDD. SMART is showing that your HDD had to reallocate some sectors, this means that your HDD had trouble writing data into the sectors while the drive was in operation and had to remap and move data from the bad sectors into special redundant sectors specially reserved for cases like this.

This means one of two things:
A: Your HDD experienced a minor fluke while in operation and tagged the sectors as bad. While not required, problems of this kind can sometimes be fixed by reformatting or running some kind of disk scan on the drive.
B: Your HDD could be experiencing physical wear such as a degradation in the magnetic material coating the HDD platters. This is an actual physical problem with your HDD and your drive will eventually fail.

It's impossible to tell which of the two it is just from SMART, combined with the fact that the number of remapped sectors is low. However, SMART is showing one way or the other that your HDD is experiencing a problem that could eventually result in a complete failure of the drive.

I would backup your C: drive ASAP and then check regularly to see if the reallocated sector count keeps increasing. If it doesn't increase any further, I would think about possibly replacing the drive at your earliest convenience while taking routine backups on a more regular basis. If the reallocated sector count increases any further however, immediately replace the drive before it completely fails or you might experience data loss.

I'd say this was overall a good checkup. While we didn't find any apparent problems on your external HDD, we did find something to worry about on your internal C: drive. :shock:

 

[JohnnyScience]

Ok so I contacted WD to check on the warranty & it's covered until June 2013, so I started the RMA process for a replacement drive.

I asked the guy if it was a brand new drive or a refurb, he stated it was basically a re-certified drive that is as good as a brand new one.

What do you guys think, should I be worried getting a refurb as a replacement for my main backup files?

As mentioned earlier, I only plug the drive in to perform the backup & then disable properly & store in a safe place.

In regards to the c: drive, I use Paragon backup to back up my OS.

Won't performing this backup copy the bad sectors as well?

It's an older HDD that I only use for my C: OS & keep all data on a separate HDD that I then backup both on the WD Passport that is now in question.

I will try to get a new HDD for the C: as soon as I can, probably after the holidays.

 

[Britton30]

Many time a re-certified drive is better than a new one having been tested more closely.
I your OS has corrupt files they would be included in an image or cloned drive. Bad sectors, I think, won't be transferred since that is a matter of the drive and not the OS.
Run this before making a backup. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1538-sfc-scannow-command-system-file-checker.html#post14392