strange things going on with my HDD

[Tezza1971]

I have an attached USB HDD (Seagate Expansion Desk 2TB) which I have assigned to M:

It has data on it, but when I try to browse it in file explorer, it shows up completely empty. Sometimes if I reboot the machine, all the files show up. Sometimes it's blank again. If I go to PROPERTIES, it says the drive has 700GB of used space with 1.13TB free. It also says it is NTFS (which is correct).

If I try running chkdsk on it, then chkdsk claims

M:\>chkdsk /x /f /r
The type of the file system is RAW.
Cannot lock current drive.
CHKDSK is not available for RAW drives.

So I don't know what is going on. Any clues on how to get this working properly would be appreciated.

 

[RogerR]

Sounds like a corrupted file system. Try running Seatools diagnostics.

If you get a boot with visible files - try to copy them to another drive ASAP!

 

[Tezza1971]

Thanks for the tip. I installed and ran seatools, and it just came up with "test failed" for everthing I tried.

I installed TestDisk and it could not find any partitions on a quick scan - it returned a read error. It's doing a "deep scan" now (and returning at least one read error that far). Hopefully it's just a case of fixing a partition table and marking a few bad blocks.

 

[TVeblen]

Stop running tests and focus on getting your data off that drive and into backup.
There may be a limited number of times that "Sometimes...all files show up".

Once the data is backed up you could try writing all zeros to the drive, then initializing it and formatting fresh and see if it sticks.

 

[PeaB4YouGo]

Once you've made your backups and preserved your data, try moving the drive to another machine and test.

Check this on other USB ports. If you're currently using a USB v2 port, change to a USB v3 port, etc...

 

[Tezza1971]

Thanks for the tips. I have all the critical data backed up now. It is USB3 BTW. I'll spend more time on it when I get the chance.

 

[S2Nice]

if you have a friend with SpinRite, I'd suggest a run at level 2, then copy off your data and RMA that bad boy if it's under warranty. No warranty? Put a bullet through it and put your mass storage needs on a home server with data duplication AND online backup.

 

[Berton]

There might be issues with diagnostics, the mention of "file explorer" says you are running Windows 8 or 8.1 but you have posted in the Windows 7 forum.

 

[TVeblen]

If you have all your data, then wipe the drive (write all zeros), then when you first hook it back up or restart the PC you will be asked to initialize it (create a new file system), then you can format it NTFS and give it a drive letter.

If the problem was with the file system (corruption) then everything should stick.

If it is a problem with the drive - most likely the controller - you will end up with the same problem. If you do the drive is unreliable and can be considered bad.

This will take considerably less time than running diagnostic tests - which will only tell you there is a problem. They won't tell you what the problem is.