External hard drive not accessible - how do I recover files

[BoyThisHurts]

Hello, I am having issues with my external hard drive. I cannot access the drive from computer or device manager. I do see the icon for the drive listed but any left or right-click freezes explorer. The drive is a 1TB Iomega USB drive. I have tried to run chkdsk on it but it will not run. I do not have access to another computer at this time to see if the drive works elsewhere.

2 things : I have gotten a popup on startup that I need to reformat the drive to be able to use it AND I have also seen the cyclic redudancy check error box. After searching for answers I believe the problem may have been caused by 1 or more instances of power loss to drive while connected to my desktop pc.

Any help retrieving my files & photos would be greatly appreciated!

 

[CKWD]

Hello BoyThisHurts!

Do you mean the drive has been multiple times unsafely disconnected, due to sudden power off of the system? This is a very serious problem. :/

Do you have data on the drive you want back or is it just the drive you want to fix? Can you post a screenshot of your Disk Management? How is the drive formatted?

I would suggest you to change the cable with a new one and when you get the opportunity, try the drive on another PC. Most probably, though, the drive would be having hardware damage. :/

CK_WD

 

[jumanji]

IOmega 1 TB external drive. You do not have access to another computer. Chkdsk will not run. That indicates that most probably your drive has turned RAW.

How many partitions did you have on that external drive?

As indicated by CKWD post a screenshot of Windows Disk Management with only your 1 TB external drive connected.(Please remove any all other external storage devices/Card Readers/USB Hubs/docks.)
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/9733-screenshots-files-upload-post-seven-forums.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/274797-disk-management-post-screen-capture-image.html

Also download, install and run MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition 9.1 Best Free Partition Manager for Windows | MiniTool Partition Free

Post a screenshot - the very first screen when you launch the application.

 

[BoyThisHurts]

CK_WD...
yes that is what I mean. I do have files on the drive I wish I could get off such as photos, some mp3s and misc. documents. I have other copies of some of those files on CDs but not a large percentage of them. Not real concerned about the drive itself it is about 8 years old...I can get a new drive.

Tried to run Disk Management with the drive connected but after 6 or 7 minutes it was still searching. I was able to view device manager. The hard drive shows up there and in computer.



jumanji...
I did not partition the drive so it is in original state. As I said I could not get Disk Management to work as it was endlessly searching. I did download and run MiniTool Partition Wizard. After a LONG delay it did finish and returned a BAD DISK result for my external HD


Is there any course of action at this point to retrieve any of the data on this drive? Thanks very much for the help...you guys are awesome!

 

[jumanji]

hmmmm........If Partition Wizard shows the drive as Bad Disk, I tend to lose hopes.

My main dilemma now is whether we should try all means to recover data as it is with the HDD inside the enclosure or we should take out the HDD, hook it up as an internal drive in a desktop and try.

Let us wait to see what CKWD has in mind.

I shall give it a thought overnight and come back tomorrow morning after about 12 hours from now.

 

[jumanji]

Device Manager shows many drives. Which is the Iomega 1TB drive? Please remove all other USB external drives and pendrives and post a screenshot of Device Manager with only the Iomega 1TB external connected. Also a screenshot of My Computer. Is your PC a desktop? I see it so in the specs.

 

[BoyThisHurts]

Okay thank you. All the Generic drives listed are card readers, there are 4 of them on the front of my tower above the DVD drive. They show up as drives F:, G:, H: & I: on computer. I do not have any other external drives hooked up. And yes it is a desktop pc with CPU tower.

I am pretty certain that my internal primary hard drive is at the bottom of the device manager list & the external HD is the one listed right above that.

I imagine there is not much hope for the drive itself, it can be replaced. But if I can get any of the files off of it by whatever means necessary I would consider that a win. Thank you.

 

[BoyThisHurts]

Oh forgot to mention that I dug out my son's old laptop computer today and tried hooking the drive up to it with no success. Also tried a USB cable from my printer with no change. Clicking on properties of that drive in device manager said the device is working properly. And tried to update the device drivers since they were from 2006 but it searched endlessly without finding anything so I cancelled the search.

 

[jumanji]

Why are you awake so early in the morning? I thought I could take some more time till you see the daylight to put out my overnight thought process .

Ok, there is perhaps a Seagate Barracuda 1TB drive inside the Iomega external.

Now piecing together all the info you had provided, I am of the opinion that your Iomega external is already on its way out. It is six years old. Initially you got the message to format it and also CRC errors - bad sectors. Now I think even those messages are gone and Windows Disk Management is just grinding and groaning - more bad sectors than before.

Now how serious are you in recovering any data in it?

You have to in any case buy another external drive to replace the Iomega. Buy a 1.5TB/2TB external.( No to 3TB: No Western Digital external drives other than Elements but again no "larger than 2TB")
You may then clone your Iomega external to the new external using ddrescue. When ddrescue completes, all data in good sectors should be visible. ddrescue could also have recovered some data in the bad sectors. That would depend on how good the bad sectors are.

Stop using the drive now so that no more bad sectors are created and you do not accelerate it to its end before you try ddrescue.

http://www.sevenforums.com/general-...d-tool-cloning-failing-hdd-data-recovery.html

 

[BoyThisHurts]

Okay. Have not hooked drive back up since testing on the laptop so will leave it sit until I procure another drive.

 

[CKWD]

Hi again!

Sorry I couldn't answer earlier, I'm not online on the weekends.

The Device Manager screenshot shows a few USB connected devices, including a 500GB WD Caviar Blue, which is your internal drive. Still, the other USB connected external drive (not a pen drive or such) is the HDD inside the Iomega. That external giving you a “bad drive”-status in other software only proves it may not be fixable. :/

I can't be also sure if it will allow you to perform a clone, it may be too damaged. I hope not though. When you do that you could also try performing a data recovery from the drive using a software in your home environment. If the data is too important then data recovery would be the next step.

Very often also getting the drive outside of the enclosure may not be such a good idea. For that you need to check your HDD specs and your warranty status.

Good luck!

CK_WD

 

[BoyThisHurts]

Okay I have a new external drive, it's a Seagate 2TB USB drive. Are there instructions for ddrescue specifically for this situation considering the failing drive is NOT my main bootable drive? Sorry but new to cloning hard drives

There is quite alot of info on here: Best method/tool for cloning a failing HDD for Data Recovery?

CKWD: not worried about fixing old drive, have a replacement now, just want to see if I can recover any data from the old one. Not expecting much but hey who knows? You are correct on identifying the drives, the 500GB is the internal hard drive and the other is the USB external drive that failed. The four other USB "drives" are actually my card reader ports hardwired into the front of my CPU tower. I would have to disassemble the tower to get them disconnected and since I already know what they are I don't see any reason to do that.

Thank you!

 

[CKWD]

You shouldn't have any problems with cloning, it doesn't also matter if your HDD is not the boot one, it makes things even easier, in my opinion.

Since I am a WD representative, I can't detail non-WD software that freely, but you should be able to find a guide for the cloning program you are to be using. Instructions usually are not so complicated, you need the drive you're cloning from and the destination drive, you want to clone on.

Good luck!

CK_WD

 

[jumanji]

Please wait for further instructions on cloning.

 

[jumanji]

Download SystemRescueCd-x86-4.6.0 (446 MiB) http://www.sysresccd.org/Download This is an ISO.

Download Rufus 2.4 (825 KB) https://rufus.akeo.ie/

Create your bootable SystemRescueCD pen drive using Rufus. ( Backup all data on the pendrive elsewhere since it will be lost when Rufus formats your pen drive and writes the ISO)



When you are ready let me know.

 

[BoyThisHurts]

Okay I have created the bootable pen drive. Ready to proceed.

 

[jumanji]

1. Using the onetime bootmenu boot your computer with that pen drive with your source disk (your failing disk) and a destination disk (formatted empty disk of capacity not less than that of your source disk) plugged in.

2. You will get a bootmenu with "SystemRescueCD - default options"- already highlighted. Just press ENTER and wait for the booting process to continue.It will end up with the prompt
" root@sysreccd /root %"

3.Against the prompt type: fdisk -l and press enter. This will list all your four drives - your 500GB System drive, your 1TB failing source drive to be cloned, your new 2TB destination drive, as also your SystemRescueCD pendrive. Note the nomenclature of your failing 1TB source disk and 2TB destination disk.

Note: fdisk[Space]-l ( l for list. It is not 1.)

(Example: I wanted to clone my 30GB pendrive with data onto my new 750GB Seagate external HDD. My failing 30GB Source pendrive was listed as "Disk /dev/sdd 30.2GiB 32463912960 bytes 63406089 sectors." My destination drive as "Disk /dev/sde 698.7GiB 750156373504 bytes 1465149167 sectors." From the size I have determined that my source disk is sdd and destination disk is sde. In your case it could be different. Note down the correct nomenclature of your 1TB failing source disk and 2TB destination HDD)

4. Next against the command prompt type: ddrescue -d -f -r3 -v /dev/sdb /dev/sdc recovery.log

Press enter

Note:
1. ddrescue[space]-d[space]-f[space]-r3[space]-v[space]/dev/sdb[space]/dev/sdc[space]recovery.log

2.Replace sdb with the correct device nomenclature of your 1TB failing Source disk and sdc with the correct device nomenclature of your 2TB Destination drive as obtained in step 3.

( From the example I had given above, it will be in my case
ddrescue -d -f -r3 -v /dev/sdd /dev/sde recovery.log )

5. Sit back and relax. The cloning process may take hours to days depending upon how bad your Source disk is. If your data is important patience is the key and the wait worth it.

In the cloning process itself it will go through cloning all the good sectors first and then try to recover the bad sectors one by one trying it 3 times (r3 option) before giving up on it.

Note: For the duration of ddrescue run you will not be able to use your PC. Leave it alone. When it encounters difficult bad sectors your PC may appear to have frozen but it is not. Do not terminate ddrescue. Just wait. It may continue after sometime.

First run should be smooth as it clones only the good sectors.

Only the second and third pass where it tries to recover the data from the bad sectors will take time.

Even if ddrescue terminates during the second or third pass unable to deal with the worst bad sectors, inasmuch as the first pass has cloned all the good sectors, you should be able to see the data in good sectors.

 

[BoyThisHurts]

I was able to start ddrescue and it recovered very small amount, 1400 MBS or so of 1TB drive. It is cloning on 3rd pass now and taking very long time. I started 2 days ago and it is only about 10 percent complete. Am I able to pause the cloning process? And would I be able to restart the process? And what happens if I lose power while it is running... would I have to restart?

 

[jumanji]

If you lose power and your computer shuts down, you will need to start afresh again. But in USA power interruption is very rare.

Let it run and complete the third pass.And finally I think you should be happy with whatever it could recover.

(If you want to reboot the computer the log file should be written to a third drive. I don't know what commands should be given for that and that is what is being discussed on the other thread. That is why I go with simple commands and the known devil. ( My post #57 in http://www.sevenforums.com/general-...tool-cloning-failing-hdd-data-recovery-6.html)

You can also check the first successful cloning here by dragonballz4.See whether you can follow the procedure adopted by him where he wrote the log file to a third drive ( to his laptop partition.)