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

Sorry added by mistake....

 

I won't do, but so I understand anyway, where can I find that update? How did you update to that version? I have no clue why I can't. Sounds good. Thank you again.

 

Thank you again for your time and assistance. Awesome! Sounds good, but I can't make this yet until I get this drives working, am I right or am I missing something? Will making a boot from those drives cause the files to not be recoverable?

Actually, I did a reboot this morning, but I am going to do it again anyway.

How did you update to the anniversary update?

 

You only need a storage location large enough to hold the 1 GB or so ISO file of Kyhi's recovery drive. Then you get yourself a 2 GB or larger USB flash drive. Make it bootable:

Create a Bootable USB Flash Drive

At step 9 make sure to format it as FAT32:
9. To format the partition, type format fs=fat32 quick, and then click ENTER.

For step 12, you will mount the ISO file of Kyki's recovery drive and copy all the files and folders from the mounted ISO file to the USB flash drive, then boot the computer from the USB flash drive (you will have to enter your UEFI/BIOS settings and find the boot override options to boot from the USB flash drive).

I always do the big updates like the Anniversary update by downloading the ISO file and manually updating the 12 computers in my house.

Read my quote in the opening post of Kyhi's recovery drive thread and you can make yourself a bootable USB flash drive that will boot into Kyhi's recovery drive and that you can install and/or upgrade to the Anniversary update from:
Windows 10 Recovery Tools - Bootable Rescue Disk - Windows 10 Forums

 

When weird things like that happen, it can be:

1. Power supply starting to go bad.

2. A marginal device plugged into the USB bus.
The same type of USB ports in a computer are usually controlled by the same USB controller. By same type of USB ports I mean all of the USB2 ports are one type and are controlled by a USB2 controller. All of the USB3 ports are a different type and controlled by a USB3 controller. Are the external drives plugged into USB2 or USB3 ports. (Black connector = USB2. Blue connector = USB3.)

Suggest removing all USB devices except for your mouse and keyboard. Then plug only one external drive into a USB2 port and see if it works. Then try that drive on a USB3 port and see if it works. Repeat for the other drive. It is important to not have any other device plugged in the USB ports. Do not plug both drives in at the same time in case one drive is marginal and affecting the other drive.

An image backup is the normal backup that a backup program does. It compresses the data from the source drive during the backup procedure, like compressing out unused areas on a drive and compressing data. It stores the backup on the backup drive as a single large file. For instance, a 1TB drive could endup as a 64GB file which will not use up the entire backup drive. So say you have a 3TB backup drive. You can store multiple backups from different drives on that backup drive. --- RESTORING A BACKUP: If the source drive fails, then a new drive is obtained and the image backup is RESTORED to the new drive. The end result is that the new drive can be booted and run exactly like the original source drive with the OS and all data exactly the same as when the backup was made. If the source drive was a data only drive, then the restored drive will be exactly the same and be a data only drive.

A clone backup is when a 1TB drive is duplicated exactly on another 1TB drive. Therefore one can just take the cloned drive and replace the source drive and be up and running asap. But only one backup per drive is possible.

Here's a link to one explanation of image vs clone backups:
Backing up your entire drive: Cloning vs. imaging | PCWorld

FWIW, a home user should be well served with doing only image backups. A business would be well served by having a clone backup as well as image backups. If a drive dies, the business can just replace it with the clone drive and be backup running instantly. ----- A home user doing a restore of an image backup only loses about 40 minutes to complete a restore of a system drive. A large original source drive could take a couple of hours to restore to a new drive using a USB2 backup drive.

The reason why I asked if your external drives are in enclosures or are bare drives plugging into a docking station is that bare drives can usually be connected directly to a PC's motherboard with a SATA cable (and power cable) and work fine. That eliminates the docking station as being the culprit. ----- Drives in USB enclosures often won't work when connected directly to a motherboard because of proprietary formatting or writing on the drive.

To clarify, drives in enclosures are ones that are in a black box where you can't see the actual bare drive itself. You just connect a USB cable from the enclosure to the PC and connect power from an a/c power adapter to the enclosure. Some enclosed drives can work with the power from the USB cable and not need power from an a/c power adapter.

 

Just to make things clear...

Chkdsk does not affect (let alone delete) files... it checks the file system for optimization... in this case it found "pointers" to files that it could not find, and deleted those indices ( the files themselves were either unreadable or already deleted, but were not touched by chkdsk) - it's much like indices work on SQL... a little table of pointers to make searching quicker, only referencing the files/tables concerned.

Thus it's probably a hardware error rendering the files unreadable.

 

Hi Everyone,

Just a quick update here. I was able to recover, I believe at this point, all of my files by using EaseUS Data Recovery. I will find out over time as I go through them. Fingers Crossed. I did transfer the recovered files to an older external hard drive. So, I am happy about that and a sigh of relief. The only thing is now reorganizing the files that were not placed in my current filing structure. Better to have them then not.

Thank you so much for your explanation. Helpful. Will check it out and I am sure I will have some questions as I investigate further. Thank you again. Anything else please don't hesitate to respond.

Thank you for your explanation, time and assistance about my concerns of using Chkdsk. As soon as I find out if it is the filesystem that you discussed previously I can give this a go and I am sure I might have a question or two for ya. Thank you again. Anything else please don't hesitate to respond.

 

Hi NavyLCDR...I ended up finding a 4gb flash drive laying around. I checked it and it says it is a fat32. Looks like I am good to go on that.

I have a few questions here. The download from Kyhi's thread is Win10586PESE_x64 ISO v160707. First, what does the PESE mean in the file name? Secondly before I mount the ISO file I want to make sure I should use this one. Is this version: 160707 the anniversery Edition? If so, from what I got from people here is not to use it. Kyhi does have another on listed: v160125 should I use that one? Also, I do have an Windows 10 installation disk that I created on DVD the 1511 version, should I use that?

Then I should be good to go and try your advice. Thank you again.

 

First, a point of clarification, I don't (and you can't) use Kyhi's Recovery Drive to upgrade an existing Windows 10 to the next version (like Anniversary Update). You can only do a clean install using Kyhi's Recovery Drive and the Windows 10 ISO file.

I'm not sure what the letters PESE stand for exactly but it means it is a very minimal Windows OS that loads completely into memory and has just enough functionality to run a few basic tasks.

There's nothing major wrong with the Anniversary update now. The cumulative updates have fixed almost all of the issues.

Stick with the latest version of Kyhi's recovery drive which is 160707.

You cannot use the Windows 10 version 1511 installation disk to upgrade to Anniversary Update because the Anniversary Update is version 1607. You'll have to download a new Windows 10 ISO file and make a DVD/USB flash drive from it.

 

Thank you for the clarification. I understand now! Also, you just figured out why I can't update to the Anniversary update. When I did the clean install I used the 1511 version or iso. I will now use the 1607 one now. You have been awesome NavyLCDR I am really grateful for your assistance as well as everybody else.

I have an update for you. I gave it a go and rebooted my flash Kyhi Drive. I was able to view one out of the two external drives. The one that I was able to view I believe all my file directories were there and intact. I went to one of my directories, but I came across an error that stated: The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable. I noticed another one like that. So, looks like some of my directories are having that problem. Not sure what you would advise on that.

I stopped there and didn't precede further with your instructions (Macrium Reflect to make the image) because I want to make sure before I do. My question is, should I make the image with Macrium on the recovery drive I made with all of my recovered files or should I make the image on a clean or brand new hard drive? Because I don't want to lose the files on my recovery drive if I place the image on there?

When it comes to the reformat stage, should I reformat using the windows disk management?

Thank you again!*Smile


EDIT 11-9-16
I wanted to correct what I said in this post about the the Anniversary Update. I wasn't able to update because I didn't know where to get it. I found it by mistake and was able to update to this version.

I happened to press the learn more after I was updating Windows.



Then went to the bottom of the page and clicked on Windows 10 release information. Then clicked on the link of Windows 10 update history and there they provided a link to get the Anniversary update. If there is an easier way to get this let me know. This is how I updated it at this point.

 

One more thing NavyLCDR about Macrium Reflect Free. I did some research and some people had some problems with it.

Here are some of the comments and would love to get your thoughts.

One user said that: Requires upgrade to pay version to back up files and folders. Once I do this will I be able to restore without upgrading to full version?

Others have said that they have problems booting up with the new hard drive. Not sure if it was something they did, but have you had any problems with this software? should I have any concerns? Should I try windows built in image maker?

Thank you again!

 

If it were me, and the files are that important - I would be taking those hard drives to a data recovery specialist. The more you mess with them, the less likely you are going to recover any data from them.

 

Here's an alternative (that I've used for years). There is a backup program called "Image for Windows (IFW)". It comes with additional programs called "Image for DOS" (IFD), "Image for Linux" (IFL) and "TBI VIEW". Normally, IFW is used to make backups while running Windows. But backups can also be made by booting into IFL and not using Windows at all.

IFD and IFL are burned to a CD and are bootable operating systems. I like IFL so I'll discuss it. Do a power on boot into IFL and it will run Linux instead of Windows. Use IFL to make image backups of your two hard drives. You are not using Windows at all to make the backups. You don't have to know how to use Linux to make the backups. IFL is a backup and restore program and it just uses Linux to make or restore backups.

After making a backup, disconnect your original hard drives, then boot into Windows and run "TBI VIEW". It can open a backup file from the backup drive and access the folders and files in it as if they were on the original hard drive. Can copy folders and or files from the backup to a hard drive.

Using this approach, you would not be jeopardizing any data on your hard drives. It can give you an opportunity to see what data is OK in the backups. The IFW bundle can be found at:

TeraByte Unlimited :: Boot Manager :: Partition Manager :: Drive Image :: Disk Copy :: Drive Wipe :: Hard Drive Utilities

I believe that one can test the software before buying but ask on the terabyteunlimited website for verification.

 

Thank you NavyLCDR. I did recover my files (Not sure if it found all, but will see as I sort through) using easeUS Data Recovery software. That data was recovered on one of my older external hard drives that I had the past 3 years. It has 2tb. That hard drive I was thinking of using to store the backup of the image. With that said, even though I recovered that data with the software, this software didn't put all my files into into the same directory structure that I originally setup which is going to require quite a bit of time to reorganize this. Because I did your advice on booting from the Kyhi drive and I was able to view my data on the corrupted & unreadable external hard drive with the same structure intact and by doing that image of that drive could save me tedious work of reorganizing my files. So, if I did a backup of the image on that same drive with all my recovered data will I lose that data if I do so? The recovered data is about 1tb, do you think I would have enough space for that image as well? In other terms, is it recommended by yourself or by most of the professional community to make a system or disk image on a brand new-clean hard drive or is it ok to make a system or disk image on the same hard drive my recovered data is on?

Would love to get your intake on this, when viewing the corrupted or unreadable drive by booting from the Kyhi drive I was able to view the most of the files, but I went to one of my directories, but I came across an error that stated: The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable. So, looks like some of my directories are having that problem. Is there a way to fix that or am I pretty much out of luck with that directory?

 

Thank you mck. That is something I will look into. I appreciate all your information and your contribution to this thread!