External Hard Drive Problem

[marstons]

A few days ago my external hard drive stopped showing in My Computer, i took it to tuk com, they said could not be fixed. i did some reasearch on the net and found how to make it show. it now shows, its a WD 500gb that i used for back up. now its shows as a 249 new Volume, not showing the other 143 used. if i go into properties it shows used 143 free, 249. problem is i cannot get into the used 143 where all my back up data is which i would dearly like to get at. i have tried various programmes all to no avail. anybody any ideas, would really like that data and it is obviously still there. any places where i might send it also helpful

from now on will use 2 back up devices.

thanks for any info

[CharlieH]

Put it in the freezer overnight (inside a plastic bag) then try it in the morning but act quickly before it warms up too much and get the data off it.

Edited October 23, 2011 by CharlieH

[NHJ]

hum should i remind electronic is not supposed to operate at less than -5° celcius unless it is specifically designed for this like army stuff and north/south pole exploration.

if it is an external hardrive simply take it out of its box and plug it into your computer using SATA or PATA connector.

if it's not working then recovery lab is your way, it should not cost more than 9k baht in thailand for data recovery in a white room.

[Elwood62]

try a program restorer 2000 it should retreive your data. good luck....other than that i think its had its day

[Supernova]

Sounds like a corrupt or deleted partition table. I ran into a similar problem not too long ago. Luckily enough, I was able to recover the lost partition table with TestDisk. All my data (200GB worth) remained intact.

[Darrel]

Sounds like a corrupt or deleted partition table.

Precisely. I doubt that there is anything physically wrong with this drive.

Repair the partition and all will most likely be well.

[Spoonman]

hum should i remind electronic is not supposed to operate at less than -5° celcius unless it is specifically designed for this like army stuff and north/south pole exploration.

Hum maybe I should mention freezing a HDD is a common way to recover data.

Data Recovery From a Failed Hard Drive - Freezing Method:

Many people have heard that putting a dead hard drive can bring it back to life, and most think it is a myth. There is actually documentation showing that by freezing a hard drive it is possible to recover the data from the drive in some cases. Freezing a hard drive can be used in data recovery, but will only fix the hard drive for a short period of time. If the drive is spinning (you will hear it turning) this is not the method to use, this method is best suited for data recovery cases where the drive is not spinning. If the drive is spinning it not physically damaged so it is a problem that should be approached through other methods.

Step 1: Make Sure You Are Prepared to Recover the Data

There is no point in trying to freeze the old hard drive if you are not prepared to immediately copy the data off of the failed hard drive. You should have a new Hard Drive already installed in the computer or have a different computer setup and ready to go. As soon as you hook the old hard drive back up to see if it works you'll have to be ready to start copying the data onto a fresh hard drive.

Step 2: Freeze the Hard Drive

Place the hard drive into a Ziploc bag and seal it. To be extra safe you can also place the drive in an anti-static bag then place it into a Ziploc bag. Place the failed hard drive into the freezer for around two hours (you can try doing it longer if two hours does not do the trick).

Step 3: Restore the Files

As soon as you remove the hard drive from the freezer install it into the computer right away as the slave drive and boot it up. If you can access the drive begin recovering the important data right away. If you are able to recover the data using this method the drive will usually work for approximately 20-30 minutes. If the method does work and you are not able to get all of your data recovered before it fails again you can freeze the drive again and try again. If the drive still does not respond you can try freezing it for a longer period of time (24 hours), but you may be out of luck.

[Darrel]

Hum maybe I should mention freezing a HDD is a common way to recover data.

Freezing is a common way to recover data from a drive that wont spin up. ("Click of death".) This is not a repair, it is just a possible way of getting a drive to spin up long enough to retrieve important data before a drive fails completely and is thrown away.

Apparently this is not the problem the OP is experiencing. Based on the symptoms described, freezing his drive will not help at all and could easily damage the heads/platters irreparably causing the loss of the data and the failure of the drive.

I have had identical problems with drives that are still in use several years later after having repaired the partitions.

[marstons]

Hi thanks for the responces, actually did try the freezer for a couple of days, the contraction is supposed to release the arm if its stuck, not sure if its called arm the the part that reads the disk, read it on google, no luck. anyway after hours on google a programme called get data back seems to have found some of it. i tried trial version and it had some there, so reluctantly forked out $72 for registration. its running now take's 4 hours but hard drive light is flashing so fingers crossed. using a laptop so if this dont work found a few suggestions to take it out the case and put into desktop so maybe feezing and setting jumpers to slave may work.

will post responce tomorrow, early start to collect friends from air port, hope car park is still not full. 2 weeks of two single newbies oh joy.

[Spoonman]

Hum maybe I should mention freezing a HDD is a common way to recover data.

Freezing is a common way to recover data from a drive that wont spin up. ("Click of death".) This is not a repair, it is just a possible way of getting a drive to spin up long enough to retrieve important data before a drive fails completely and is thrown away.

Yeah I mentioned that.

Hum maybe I should mention freezing a HDD is a common way to recover data.

If the drive is spinning (you will hear it turning) this is not the method to use, this method is best suited for data recovery cases where the drive is not spinning. If the drive is spinning it not physically damaged so it is a problem that should be approached through other methods.

[Spoonman]

Hi thanks for the responces, actually did try the freezer for a couple of days, the contraction is supposed to release the arm if its stuck, not sure if its called arm the the part that reads the disk, read it on google, no luck. anyway after hours on google a programme called get data back seems to have found some of it. i tried trial version and it had some there, so reluctantly forked out $72 for registration. its running now take's 4 hours but hard drive light is flashing so fingers crossed. using a laptop so if this dont work found a few suggestions to take it out the case and put into desktop so maybe feezing and setting jumpers to slave may work.

will post responce tomorrow, early start to collect friends from air port, hope car park is still not full. 2 weeks of two single newbies oh joy.

Airport carpark is chock a block full, good luck getting a parking spot, I flew in on Saturday night and could not mind the person whom was picking me up, I gave him a call and he was parked out on the road as he could not find a parking spot.

Edited October 23, 2011 by Spoonman

[astral]

Have a read through this thread it may cast some light on your problem.

[Darrel]

Hi thanks for the responces, actually did try the freezer for a couple of days, the contraction is supposed to release the arm if its stuck, not sure if its called arm the the part that reads the disk, read it on google, no luck. anyway after hours on google a programme called get data back seems to have found some of it. i tried trial version and it had some there, so reluctantly forked out $72 for registration.

A shame you did this.

The freezer would never have solved your problem as your drive does not have a physical defect. It is just having trouble with the partition table. Freezing is ONLY useful for drives that "click" when starting (the click is the stuck arm) or sometimes for drives that wont spin up. As your drive can be read in part, this is obviously not the problem.

There are numerous free partition repair tools, many of which work very well. One of those would probably have made all your data visible again. The programme you have bought sounds like a simple data recovery programme which will not do the same job at all. There are also very good free data recovery programmes that would have saved you USD72, though they are not what you needed either.

[Supernova]

^^ I concur.

Recovering the partition table should be first priority.

TestDisk is one such utility that will allow you to do this; click here for instructions.

[Darrel]

TestDisk

I've used that one often and it is indeed a very good tool.

[marstons]

Hi thanks for the responces, actually did try the freezer for a couple of days, the contraction is supposed to release the arm if its stuck, not sure if its called arm the the part that reads the disk, read it on google, no luck. anyway after hours on google a programme called get data back seems to have found some of it. i tried trial version and it had some there, so reluctantly forked out $72 for registration.

A shame you did this.

The freezer would never have solved your problem as your drive does not have a physical defect. It is just having trouble with the partition table. Freezing is ONLY useful for drives that "click" when starting (the click is the stuck arm) or sometimes for drives that wont spin up. As your drive can be read in part, this is obviously not the problem.

There are numerous free partition repair tools, many of which work very well. One of those would probably have made all your data visible again. The programme you have bought sounds like a simple data recovery programme which will not do the same job at all. There are also very good free data recovery programmes that would have saved you USD72, though they are not what you needed either.

finding that out now, it found thousands and thousands of missing data but i could not extract it, most of it was corrupt. will try test disk.

i did try going into properties and taking full control as administrator but still showing as only part data available. will try the test disk now, although running a programme that has found the data called recovery fix, but its a case of paying again.might try a few shops if the test disk fails, now i have it showing maybe a few have programmes that could help. any thereories on it may work better if i take out of casing and put into desk top as seperate hard drive. i have been through so many forums on google, seems an option.

once again thanks for all the info

slightly off topic but mentioned it earlier all short term car parking at airport rock solid and closed in multi stories.

[Darrel]

it found thousands and thousands of missing data but i could not extract it, most of it was corrupt. will try test disk.

i did try going into properties and taking full control as administrator but still showing as only part data available. will try the test disk now, although running a programme that has found the data called recovery fix, but its a case of paying again.might try a few shops if the test disk fails, now i have it showing maybe a few have programmes that could help. any thereories on it may work better if i take out of casing and put into desk top as seperate hard drive. i have been through so many forums on google, seems an option.

Unfortunately if you have run data recovery programmes they have probably overwritten the files to an extent. You should have tried to repair the partition before doing anything else. Do NOT run any other programme until you have tried it, and only ever do one thing at a time.

It will make no difference at all whether the drive is in the PC or in a USB caddy.

Edited October 24, 2011 by Darrel

[justsumhelp]

you should run a live cd www.ubuntu.com , then mount the drive (click the places option on the menu bar at the top, and look for the the name of your hardrive it wil most likely be the strange named one in the list), copy all the stuff you want to a usb thumb drive or usb hardrive. All this talk about freezers is nonsense, freezers have moisture, the devil of all electronics, if there is really important info on the hardrive then are professional ways to recover it that cost much more than $72. Also as a side note if your trying to save electronics from water place them in a sealed container full of rice.

[marstons]

i ran i programme called recuva, it found all the files i wanted but would not transfer them to another disk, so they are there. testdisk i ran, as those who use it know it seems to tun in what i would call cmd prompt or old dos style, it kept saying it could not progress as anti virus was preventing, i removed anti virus still same meeage. will get there some how, but if anybody can give some advice on how to ust the test disk would be appreiated.

thanks

[Darrel]

I seem to recall specifically saying NOT to run any other programme before Testdisk, or some similar partition repair programme. The more you do to the drive the less likely it is that Testdisk can repair the partition and allow you to regain access to your uncorrupted files.

The online help file for Testdisk is extensive. Just follow the instructions.

What anti-virus do you have, and what do you mean by "removed it"?

[marstons]

I seem to recall specifically saying NOT to run any other programme before Testdisk, or some similar partition repair programme. The more you do to the drive the less likely it is that Testdisk can repair the partition and allow you to regain access to your uncorrupted files.

The online help file for Testdisk is extensive. Just follow the instructions.

What anti-virus do you have, and what do you mean by "removed it"?

had AVG, test disk, said it could not go anyfurther and suggested antivirus maybe stopping it. so removed i deactivated every thing still no joy, so tried the other tool. anyway i guess the reboot had fully removed the anti virus programme , now rebooted read wiki on test disk. its running now and is reprorting recovering files so thats great. hope when it ends in 11 hours it simple to recover and transfer some where. when test disk would go no further had to try something else.

using the phote rec option with it.

have a form of OCD and writing things down is part of it hence the panic attacks when it wont work, not something thats exactly what you want to have to say on a forum but, may explain the anxiity. i had it backed up on external hard rive, was on lap top, also on usb. i lent usb stick, seems i i transfrered rather than copied to external hard drive. any way when i get it back it will be on 3 sources.

[Darrel]

Sounds like it's heading the right way.

[marstons]

thanks to all especially Darrel, testdisk did the job, took a while and downloaded130gb in 40 partitions with 500 files in each, found what i wanted in 397. nearly 200,000 files to search through. right way or not it worked for me and everything backed up 3 times.

[roc634]

Once your disk has a problem such as data lost, never do any write or erase operation on it. unplug and send it to a PROFESSIONAL agent to fix it. You can save most of your data.

[petedk]

Have to checked all the connections?

I had a similar problem with an external hard drive. It simply didn't show up in Windows Explorer and after a lot of resetting the computer I managed to get Explorer to find the hard drive but it said that the drive needed reformatting. I disconnected the hard drive from the computer, looked at it, put the usb cable back in, connected it, turned on the computer and it found all my files.

That was 6 months ago and it still works perfectly. It must have been a loose USB connection.