Windows 10: Hard drive is corrupted and unreadable what to do? Please Help!

Hello everyone,

I did a search of the forums and didn't get the answer I was looking for. I have two external hard drives. Not sure how this happened, but When I try to access both external hard drives on drive letters E: and F: it gives me an access is denied. the F: drive gives me an additional message that states: The parameter is incorrect. I also got a message before that it was corrupted and unreadable. I don't remember where that message popped up though.

What would be the proper procedure to get my hard drive working and recover my files? I don't want to lose my files. My whole life is on there. Any other information you guys need please ask and I will do my best to answer.

Thank you very much for all your help. Crossing all my fingers that i can get this resolved.

HARD DRIVE 1 WITH PARTITION







HARD DRIVE 2 TURNED TO RAW





:)

 

External hard drive corrupted and unreadable

I recently tried to access my external hard drive when it displayed the error message:

'F:\ is not accessible.

The disk structure is corrupted and unreadable.'

I'm not an expert on anything like this, but I searched for solutions to other peoples similar problems, some of which I tried but none of which worked. I tried using command prompt. CHKDSK worked and scanned the hard drive (or did something like that) and
said there were no problems with anything on it. If I try to use 'CHKDSK f: /f' or '/r' or whatever I get the response:

'The type of the file system is NTFS.

Unable to determine volume version and state. CHKDSK aborted.'

Using 'CHKNTFS f:' gives me the response:

'The type of the file system is NTFS.

Cannot query state of drive F:'

I have tried going onto properties, tools, error checking, but it says 'The disk check can't be performed because Windows can't access the disk.'

Also, on disk management it says the hard drive is completely empty and is using the RAW file system.

I have no idea what to do about this so any help would be greatly appreciated.

P.S. I would prefer to be able to recover the data on there, but am willing to sacrafice it all if it's much easier than recovering it.

Thanks

 

External hard drive corrupted and unreadable

Although this refers to a GPT partition & Win XP it should allow you to format the drive under Win 10 - hopefully.

You might see HD Drive in GPT status on Disk Management.

Go to DOS command line (click on "Start Menu", then "Run", type in "cmd" in textbox, and hit "OK")

Type in "DiskPart" in command line.

Type in "list disk" in command line to show all disks in this machine.

Use "select" to set the focus to the specified partition.

For example "select disk 1".

Use "clean" command to remove GPT disk from the current in-focus disk by zeroing sectors.

Go back to Disk Management, you can see GPT disk is "Not Initialized" now.

Within Disk Management, right click on disk info, choose "Initialize Disk", You can see GPT disk is "Unallocated" now.

Right click on disk info, choose "New Partition…", follow Partition Wizard and format it. Now you are able to use the disk in Windows XP.

 

First, kind of obvious but I have to ask, have you done a shutdown and power on boot?

Have those external drives ever worked on Win10? Or first time connected to your Win10 PC?

The upper external drive does not have a drive letter assigned. Can you assign a drive letter to it?

From your post, I assume that you don't have backups of both external drives. If so, before you try anything, are you able to make backups of both external drives? Maybe on a different PC running Win7 or Win8. I would do that first before trying anything else since your whole life is on those drives. If you don't have a third empty drive to back up to, suggest buying one and backing up to it using the "imaging" method of backup. (not clone method). With the imaging method, you can put multiple backups on one backup drive.

Regarding the drive that had the corruption error. Is it in a USB enclosure or a bare drive plugged into a docking station?

 

Maybe you just got the Anniversary Update? That has occasionally been reported to not see some drives. For example...

Windows 10 Anniversary update problems, not recognizing external hdd

Try the drives on another PC, I'd expect them to seen correctly there.

 

I would create a bootable USB flash drive or DVD of Kyhi's recovery drive:
Windows 10 Recovery Tools - Bootable Rescue Disk - Windows 10 Forums

See if the drives are readable when you boot the computer from it. Definitely a backup solution large enough to make backups onto is a must have! If the drives are readable in Kyhi's recovery drive, you can use the Macrium Reflect program included on his drive to make backup images of the hard drives. Then you can troubleshoot further by reformatting the hard drives without the "quick" to do a surface check of the drives while formatting. If you have bad sectors, I would recommend replacing the installed hard drives.

If the full long format of the drives comes back OK, then you can restore your backup images to the installed drive and chalk it up to the infamous Anniversary update glitch. I think that what happened with that is that something in the Anniversary update is not compatible with certain parameters used when partitioning some drives and simply backing up the drives with bootable software that is compatible, reformatting the drives, and restoring the backup images fixes it.

 

... if it's just the filesytem that's corrupted (not the disk itself).. try chkdsk with /f and /r switches.

 

Hi mck,

Thank you so much for your response.

Yes, I did!!! I actually, rebooted my whole computer with a clean install, but still no luck.

Yes, I have been using these drives since December of 2013. No, not first time use.

Here is the weird thing, I just checked again and now it is showing the name I gave it and the drive letter E: It is also saying now it is a Healthy Partition. *Think

The funny or sad thing is I did have backups and those external drives I mentioned are the backups and the ones messed up. How crazy is that!!!!! So, yes, I was able to make backups before.

Unfortunately, I do not have another computer to test the hard drives on. The interesting thing is I never did the imaging method ever. I think I might give this a try this time. Can you point me to information so I can start learning this?

I will explain further here. I believe both drives are in the same boat, but not sure. I do know that the E: drive is recognizing the name I gave it before, but the F: drive is not. It has become a raw drive for some strange reason.


I am very appreciated of your time and help. If you have anything else please don't hesitate to do so.*Smile

 

Hi Bree,

Thank you so much for your time and assistance. I am not sure if it is or not. What is the version number of that update? Also, my drives are visible they are just corrupted etc. and cannot access.

Unfortunately, don't have another PC.

 

Hi Superfly,

Thank you so much for your time and assistance. I actually started to do this and it said Deleting orphan file record segment and it was deleting tons of them. I got concerned. I did some research and found out that if you do this you will lose your files. I did not want to take any chances.

 

Hi NavyLCDR,

Thank you so much for your time and assistance.

How do I know if I have downloaded or updated to this anniversary addition? I will have to look further into your advice and I will comment more a bit later as I understand further. It will be a day or so.

I am trying this right now, I downloaded EaseUS Data Recovery (What do you think of this program?) and I am doing a deep scan of the F: drive and it is finding the files. it says it will be another 4 hours until complete. Once complete then I am going to transfer it to another hard drive. Then I am going to reformat the F: and transfer those file back on to it. What do you think of me doing this so far? Once I do this then I can make that recovery drive you recommended. If I am understanding correctly.

 

Run Winver. If you are on the Anniversary Update it will say version 1607 build 14393.351 (the last 3 digits may be lower in you don't have the latest updates). If you were updated in the last 10 days the option to go back to the earlier build is in: Settings > Update & Security > Recovery

 

Thank you again for your response. Currently. after my reboot, I am on version 1511 (Build 10586.633). I did another Windows update and it says everything is up to date. How do I update to this anniversary update? It seems like it is not this update that is causing my problem.

 

You probably don't want to go for the Anniversary Update yet, it has been known to cause such 'missing drive' problems (that's why I wondered if you had just got the AU). Let's see if others can help you get your drives working first. *Smile

 

EaseUS data recovery is good. I would still make a USB/DVD of Kyhi's recovery drive. Booting from that and accessing the drives in question will tell you if it is the drives that are the problem, or your Windows 10 installation. Given your inability to update to the latest edition of Windows 10, I would say that it is time for a clean install of Windows 10.