Need HD help - Urgent

[g|aSsJaw]

Yesterday I noticed that one of my WD 250gb slave drives was not listed under hard disk drives in my computer.

When I restarted my computer to see what the problem could be, it said that this drive needed to be checked for consistency. It completes the test up to 57%, then it starts saying that "file record segment xxxxx is unreadable". It ran all night long while I slept, and when I woke up this morning it said the check was complete, but obviously something is wrong with the drive.

This drive basically has back-ups of everything I need (which was stupid on my part) and I really can't afford to lose any of it. Is there anything I can do to save all of the data on this drive? does the drive need to be completely replaced after this?

thanks for any and all help.

[g|aSsJaw]

I should note that it is an IDE drive hooked up with a SATA converter.

[sabregen]

at windows desktop:

right click on my computer, go to manage. click the snap-in for disc management. is the disc listed here? if yes, go to start>run> type "cmd", press enter. at command prompt dialogue box, type "fix /mbr", press enter. after that completes, type "chkdsk /f (driveletter):", press enter. continue running chkdsk /f command until no more errors. reboot, then see if drive is listed under my computer. COPY THE CRAP OFF, IMMEDIATELY.

if the drive is not listed under the disk management interface, but it is being listed in BIOS...you have a more serious sector read problem, to the point where windows can't even see the partition, which is why it isn't showing up. If that's the case, download the Hiren's boot CD (http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd)image, and run it from boot, and attempt a partition repair on the drive, then copy the data off...you're drive might be repairable, but...you'll lose all the data in doing so...get it off first.

after the data is off, do a low-level format on the drive (writes all zeros to each sector...VERY LONG PROCESS). after that, format it, and then run a disc media scan on the formatted partition, and check the partition integrity. After this, I wouldn't trust it to hold anything important. If your data's valuable...RMA it if possible.

[MjrStryker]

First of all, does it make any odd noises? You should definitely try to avoid opening the hard drive folder as much as possible and above all else, do not attempt to write to the drive. Your first priority should be rescuing what you can from it. I suggest using an OS other than windows for this. You can download Knoppix or Ubuntu iso's for free. If you attempt to write to a drive that has a physical defect, you could end up damaging the discs even more and losing what little data is still readable.

What you'll want is a distribution that you can run from the dvd. That will allow you to access your drives without using Windows and without affecting your already installed software. From there, try to copy as much of the data as you can to another drive. It sounds to me like your hard drive is toast and if it's under warranty, definitely RMA it.

[g|aSsJaw]

at windows desktop:

right click on my computer, go to manage. click the snap-in for disc management. is the disc listed here? if yes, go to start>run> type "cmd", press enter. at command prompt dialogue box, type "fix /mbr", press enter. after that completes, type "chkdsk /f (driveletter):", press enter. continue running chkdsk /f command until no more errors. reboot, then see if drive is listed under my computer. COPY THE CRAP OFF, IMMEDIATELY.

if the drive is not listed under the disk management interface, but it is being listed in BIOS...you have a more serious sector read problem, to the point where windows can't even see the partition, which is why it isn't showing up. If that's the case, download the Hiren's boot CD (http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd)image, and run it from boot, and attempt a partition repair on the drive, then copy the data off...you're drive might be repairable, but...you'll lose all the data in doing so...get it off first.

after the data is off, do a low-level format on the drive (writes all zeros to each sector...VERY LONG PROCESS). after that, format it, and then run a disc media scan on the formatted partition, and check the partition integrity. After this, I wouldn't trust it to hold anything important. If your data's valuable...RMA it if possible.

The drive is listed under the snap-in for disc management and under status it is listed as healthy. I'm trying to do your next step in the command prompt dialogue box but it's saying fix is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file. What do I need to do?

Also, since this is just a slave drive formatted with NTFS and no operating system, do I even need to fix the master boot record?

Currently the command prompt window reads as "C:\Documents and Settings\chris>"

Edit:
I skipped the fix /mbr step for now since it wasn't working and went to the "chkdsk /f H:" step. This is the same thing that happens when I start-up my computer, chkdsk verifies the files until it's 57% complete, then starts listing all the file record segments that are unreadable (last time it was over 5000). Am I supposed to just keep doing this over and over until there are no more file record segment xxxxx is unreadable messages? because that could take a few days by the looks of things.

[sabregen]

well, apparently, I can't recall the syntax of the MBR Fix...although I'm going to look here, in a minute. To answer question #2, yes, you want to have chkdsk fix all of the orphaned file segments, otherwise a copy will not work. You're only other option is to use something like Symantec Ghost, or even better, Acronis TrueImage to get the data onto a known good disc, then fix it. I suggested the chkdsk /f x: option because I assumed (perhaps incorrectly) that you only had one system on which to work. If thats not the case, you might try putting the drive on another box and running an imaging software, then cleaning up the mess, but you'll have to do it at some point. I'll go look for the MBR fix now. You shouldn't need it, but it may help.

PS - another chkdsk function to try would be:

chkdsk /r x: (r imples f. and requests that data be recovered from bad sectors, if possible).

[g|aSsJaw]

well, apparently, I can't recall the syntax of the MBR Fix...although I'm going to look here, in a minute. To answer question #2, yes, you want to have chkdsk fix all of the orphaned file segments, otherwise a copy will not work. You're only other option is to use something like Symantec Ghost, or even better, Acronis TrueImage to get the data onto a known good disc, then fix it. I suggested the chkdsk /f x: option because I assumed (perhaps incorrectly) that you only had one system on which to work. If thats not the case, you might try putting the drive on another box and running an imaging software, then cleaning up the mess, but you'll have to do it at some point. I'll go look for the MBR fix now. You shouldn't need it, but it may help.

PS - another chkdsk function to try would be:

chkdsk /r x: (r imples f. and requests that data be recovered from bad sectors, if possible).

I'm not getting the error that says orphan files are being deleted, it's just saying that file record segments are unreadable. This prompt has been running for hours now and it's still listing unreadable file record segments.

I found a program online called SpinRite for $89 but I'm not sure if I want to spend that without knowing if it's going to work. I really need to recover the data on this drive if at all possible.

Thanks for your help so far sabregen, I really appreciate it.

[g|aSsJaw]

First of all, does it make any odd noises? You should definitely try to avoid opening the hard drive folder as much as possible and above all else, do not attempt to write to the drive. Your first priority should be rescuing what you can from it. I suggest using an OS other than windows for this. You can download Knoppix or Ubuntu iso's for free. If you attempt to write to a drive that has a physical defect, you could end up damaging the discs even more and losing what little data is still readable.

What you'll want is a distribution that you can run from the dvd. That will allow you to access your drives without using Windows and without affecting your already installed software. From there, try to copy as much of the data as you can to another drive. It sounds to me like your hard drive is toast and if it's under warranty, definitely RMA it.

I'm going to give Ubuntu a shot and try transferring whatever I can to my other drives. Hopefully I can save almost everything.

[g|aSsJaw]

I couldn't get Ubuntu to work, I'm not sure what the problem is. It never passed the installing step, and I let it run all night while I slept.

It looks like I'm running out of options on this thing. The drive still shows up under my computer and on the disk management snap-in, Windows even recognizes the size of the drive and how much free space is left, I just can't find a way to start trying to recover the data on it.

Any more ideas?

[MjrStryker]

Try the Knoppix Live-DVD. If you were having to install Ubuntu then I'm not sure you had the right distribution. The goal is to run the Linux OS directly from a dvd or cd rom. You could try Helix as well. That should give you plenty of utilities to recover data.

http://www.e-fense.com/helix/

[g|aSsJaw]

Try the Knoppix Live-DVD. If you were having to install Ubuntu then I'm not sure you had the right distribution. The goal is to run the Linux OS directly from a dvd or cd rom. You could try Helix as well. That should give you plenty of utilities to recover data.

http://www.e-fense.com/helix/

When I ran Ubuntu from the CD it wasn't detecting any of my HD's, it was like it was just a trial run of the OS and some of the software it came with.

I'll give that Knoppix Live-DVD a shot, and Helix.

Will it be as simple as loading Knoppix or Helix and trying to transfer files from the bad HD to the couple of good ones I have, or is there more I need to know in order to do this correctly?

Thanks.

[MjrStryker]

With the Knoppix Live-DVD, you place it in your dvd drive and boot the PC. Upon booting from the dvd drive, it will bring up a screen asking if you want to install or run from the dvd. Choose run from the dvd. After which it will boot up Knoppix. If it pauses during this part, be patient. I've had it sit there for almost a minute before as it searches the dvd for a specific driver or piece of software it needs. Once it's finished loading, your hard drives will show up on your desktop where you may open them and transfer files from one to the other.

[g|aSsJaw]

With the Knoppix Live-DVD, you place it in your dvd drive and boot the PC. Upon booting from the dvd drive, it will bring up a screen asking if you want to install or run from the dvd. Choose run from the dvd. After which it will boot up Knoppix. If it pauses during this part, be patient. I've had it sit there for almost a minute before as it searches the dvd for a specific driver or piece of software it needs. Once it's finished loading, your hard drives will show up on your desktop where you may open them and transfer files from one to the other.

Is there anywhere to get the dvd iso quickly? I'm getting it from one of the download mirrors currently and at 150kb/s down it's going to take a good 8 hours before I can try it.

[hity645]

Have you tried hooking up to IDE instead of using the sata converter?

[g|aSsJaw]

Have you tried hooking up to IDE instead of using the sata converter?

Not yet.

Some people have told me it should have nothing to do with the SATA cable/SATA converter and other people have told me to try hooking it up as an IDE drive by itself and see what happens.

I'm going to try that next and then I'll try the Linux boot. I'll let you know what happens.

[carp3n0ct3m]

Is there anywhere to get the dvd iso quickly? I'm getting it from one of the download mirrors currently and at 150kb/s down it's going to take a good 8 hours before I can try it.

You could try downloading it using bit torrent.

[MjrStryker]

Bittorrent would probably be slower. I was trying to download helix today as well and 150KB/s is more than what I was getting.

[g|aSsJaw]

I switched the drive over to IDE and ran into the same problem, so I'm assuming the SATA converter isn't the culprit.

I'm going to give Knoppix a shot next, past that I don't know what else I can do.

[sabregen]

SpinRite is part of the Hiren's Boot Image that I linked before. It's a good program, but it will not assist in the recovery. It functions to move date out of bad sectors. However, if it's been hanging out in bad sectors, and is now unreadable, or recoverable...it won't help much, if at all. You'd be better off putting th $89 towards a new 320GB Seagate 7200.10. Sounds like you're throwing everything at recovering that porn collection! :D

[g|aSsJaw]

SpinRite is part of the Hiren's Boot Image that I linked before. It's a good program, but it will not assist in the recovery. It functions to move date out of bad sectors. However, if it's been hanging out in bad sectors, and is now unreadable, or recoverable...it won't help much, if at all. You'd be better off putting th $89 towards a new 320GB Seagate 7200.10. Sounds like you're throwing everything at recovering that porn collection! :D


music collection :(

and photos from the past few years.

[g|aSsJaw]

With the Knoppix Live-DVD, you place it in your dvd drive and boot the PC. Upon booting from the dvd drive, it will bring up a screen asking if you want to install or run from the dvd. Choose run from the dvd. After which it will boot up Knoppix. If it pauses during this part, be patient. I've had it sit there for almost a minute before as it searches the dvd for a specific driver or piece of software it needs. Once it's finished loading, your hard drives will show up on your desktop where you may open them and transfer files from one to the other.

When I boot from the DVD, the Knoppix screen loads and tells me to hit enter to boot from the DVD. I hit enter, then it goes to a black screen with two Linux penguins in the top left corner and does nothing after that. Is that the point where I need to just let it load for however long it takes, or is something wrong?

[MjrStryker]

If you see no text appearing on the screen after the penguins appear, then something is definitely wrong. There should be many many lines of multicolored text showing you what the Knoppix cd is trying to do.

Care to give us some more info about what hardware you're using?

[g|aSsJaw]

If you see no text appearing on the screen after the penguins appear, then something is definitely wrong. There should be many many lines of multicolored text showing you what the Knoppix cd is trying to do.

Care to give us some more info about what hardware you're using?

I'm thinking this drive might be causing it to not load.

Hardware:
2.8ghz p4
1gb DDR RAM
ABIT IS7 Motherboard
Radeon x850xt graphics card
Audigy 2 soundcard

Master HD:
Seagate 80gb 7200rpm

Slaves:
1x250gb WD 7200rpm
1x250gb WD SATA 7200rpm
1x250gb WD 7200rpm on SATA Converter (the problem drive)

My optical drive is an NEC combo drive (cd burner/dvd burner/dvd player, etc.)

[g|aSsJaw]

The drive is also no longer showing up under disk management, so I'm assuming it's as good as dead at this point, even though I can feel it spinning and it's not making any noise.

[g|aSsJaw]

I'm posting this right now in Knoppix. When the problem drive is completely unplugged, Knoppix loads immediately after the two penguins appear. When the problem drive is plugged in, it is causing Knoppix to stop loading as soon as the penguins appear.

I'm going to assume there's not much else I can try for saving the data on the problem drive, but let me know if there is.

[unhappy_mage]

You could wait until the system is booted into Knoppix with it unplugged, then plug it in through a USB enclosure and see if it recognizes then.

[MjrStryker]

Or do as the above poster said, only using the sata adapter. Sata is plug'n'play just like usb is.

[theTIK]

You could wait until the system is booted into Knoppix with it unplugged, then plug it in through a USB enclosure and see if it recognizes then.

I picked up an IDE to USB cable and power supply so I can run the HD independently instead of in the system, that way the computer functions normally and doesn't freeze up with the problem drive installed. I'll try booting into Knoppix and then plugging in the drive and see if that works.

Edit: I accidentally posted this on my friends account :D

[g|aSsJaw]

Knoppix detects the drive on the IDE to USB cable but can't open it.

Windows detects the drive on the IDE to USB cable and I can access parts of it and transfer some files to other drives, but when I try to transfer other files it says that it can't read the source of the file. I'm guessing I'll just have to go through the drive and find what will transfer and what won't and go from there. It's a very, very slow process.

[MjrStryker]

Has your computer been exposed to any sort of physical shock while the drive was running? Tipping it over, or bumping into it pretty hard with something maybe? It definitely sounds like something is physically wrong with the disks in the drive or the read/write heads. Odds are the files you can't access are physically damaged or no longer there and just the file table remains.

[irrision]

I'd give up on trying to read a failing drive with a live disc right away as it'll never last long enough to get everything. Heres an easy trick that'll have a reasonable chance of getting the data. You need to clone the drive to a good empty one, the success rate is considerably higher than fiddling with the drive hoping some piece of software might read it and quite a bit faster most of the time.

Get your hands on a copy of ghost ( its on hirens which is available on any torrents site around 89Mb iso, but of course only if you already have a license for ghost ;) Hook up just the bad drive and the good drive to your machine (leave all your other hard drives unplugged lest you accidentally erase them while doing this). Boot off the ghost/hirens disc. Make sure the force option is checked under the third tab in options before you start. Then select from drive > to drive and highlight the bad drive ( hit okay) then the good drive and hit okay. It will likely give a message about a drive with an active chkdsk bit, just hit okay and ignore it. It may also give an error saying it recommends you run chkdsk on the drive after another minute, select continue and ignore it. With any luck the drive should clone over to the new one though it could take anywhere for 4 hours to 20 hours depending on how hosed the drive is.

Afterwards you can run chkdsk /f on the new drive which shouldn't have any problems repairing the filesystem. There are some more robust blind copy utilities out there that would be better suited to this kind of cloning but ghost is easy to use and will work fine so long as the drive isn't too far along.

If ghost isn't available or doesn't work you can try ddrescue which is capable of working on worse of drives. Its included as part of the Helix live distro: http://www.e-fense.com/helix/

[g|aSsJaw]

Has your computer been exposed to any sort of physical shock while the drive was running? Tipping it over, or bumping into it pretty hard with something maybe? It definitely sounds like something is physically wrong with the disks in the drive or the read/write heads. Odds are the files you can't access are physically damaged or no longer there and just the file table remains.

Nothing like that has happened, that's why I'm so surprised this happened. The drive isn't even 2 years old yet.

[g|aSsJaw]

I'd give up on trying to read a failing drive with a live disc right away as it'll never last long enough to get everything. Heres an easy trick that'll have a reasonable chance of getting the data. You need to clone the drive to a good empty one, the success rate is considerably higher than fiddling with the drive hoping some piece of software might read it and quite a bit faster most of the time.

Get your hands on a copy of ghost ( its on hirens which is available on any torrents site around 89Mb iso, but of course only if you already have a license for ghost ;) Hook up just the bad drive and the good drive to your machine (leave all your other hard drives unplugged lest you accidentally erase them while doing this). Boot off the ghost/hirens disc. Make sure the force option is checked under the third tab in options before you start. Then select from drive > to drive and highlight the bad drive ( hit okay) then the good drive and hit okay. It will likely give a message about a drive with an active chkdsk bit, just hit okay and ignore it. It may also give an error saying it recommends you run chkdsk on the drive after another minute, select continue and ignore it. With any luck the drive should clone over to the new one though it could take anywhere for 4 hours to 20 hours depending on how hosed the drive is.

Afterwards you can run chkdsk /f on the new drive which shouldn't have any problems repairing the filesystem. There are some more robust blind copy utilities out there that would be better suited to this kind of cloning but ghost is easy to use and will work fine so long as the drive isn't too far along.

If ghost isn't available or doesn't work you can try ddrescue which is capable of working on worse of drives. Its included as part of the Helix live distro: http://www.e-fense.com/helix/

That sounds good, I'll try that. My uncle was telling me about Ghost last night. I ran a demo version of GetDataBack, the demo allows you to scan the hard drive and see how many files it could potentially recover, and then if it looks like it can recover enough to justify purchasing a key for the program, you can do so for $80 and it will allow you to save the files. I ran the demo, and when it reached the part after scanning where you are supposed to see the files it could potentially save, the screen was blank. The instructions for the program say this is because the drive has too much physical damage for GetDataBack to even detect the file system, let alone locate files.

When I'm running Ghost, will I need my master hard drive hooked up? or can I boot with only the two slave drives plugged in? (the bad one and the good one)

Thanks for the advice so far.

[MjrStryker]

Ghost should boot straight off the CD, so the hard drive containing your operating system shouldn't be needed.

[g|aSsJaw]

Ghost should boot straight off the CD, so the hard drive containing your operating system shouldn't be needed.

Is there a specific version of ghost I should be looking for?

[MjrStryker]

Not sure. I've worked with Norton Ghost 2003 so that's the version I know of.

[irrision]

9 or 11 have bootable cds that I know of offhand. Otherwise if you happen to have a copy of hirens (available on torrent sites) it has ghost on it bootable.

[g|aSsJaw]

9 or 11 have bootable cds that I know of offhand. Otherwise if you happen to have a copy of hirens (available on torrent sites) it has ghost on it bootable.

I finally got around to trying this, but something isn't working.

I unplugged everything except my optical drive with the hirens disc in it, the good hd, and the bad hd. Everything else had both power and ide/sata cables unplugged. I boot off the Hirens disc, select the disc cloning menu, select Norton Ghost 8.3, select the normal version (there's 7 different ones on the Norton Ghost menu), but it freezes up on what looks to be the main screen. All it shows is the Symantec logo and an hour glass, but nothing ever loads.

When I couldn't get that to load, I left the drives as they were and booted off the Helix disc. I selected to boot into the Helix GUI at the menu, but once it loaded, Ddrescue did not seem to be anywhere on there. I looked through all the menus and even ran a search for it, and it came up with nothing.

Any ideas on either of these? I'm still trying to recover the data on it if at all possible.

[coolie_d]

uhhh, i'm pretty sure if the drive is damaged badly enough, Ghost will choke on it...... i've had it give up just due to a few bad sectors before.......... sounds like the problem MIGHT lie in the interface board somewhere, as it sounds like the drive is hanging at detection in Ghost.......... you MIGHT be able to salvage data if you've got a KNOWN GOOD AND IDENTICAL drive that you could borrow the PCB from........... in my experience when the drive sounds mechanically sound (no weird noises, etc) and seems to hang during detection phases (BIOS, Ghost, etc.) that the problem usually lies in the controller, not the drive mechanics themselves.......... and sometimes a PCB swap is enough to get data back, depending on how much the bad PCB corrupted..........

EDIT: WARNING: IF YOU TRY THIS AND ARE NOT 100% SURE THE DRIVES ARE IDENTICAL, DON'T BE SURPRISED IF BAD THINGS HAPPEN!