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

Good choice.

If you buy a USB3 docking station (or any other USB3 device), it will be backwards compatible so will work with the USB2 ports on your motherboard.

Don't quite understand your question but here's what I think you're asking:
Any USB3 device will work if plugged into a USB2 port on your PC. It will work at USB2 speed though. A USB3 device must use a USB3 cable to work at USB3 speed. USB3 cables are identified by a blue color when looking into the connector, while USB2 cables are black.

USB3 device + USB3 cable + USB3 port on the computer = "theoretical" data transfer rates of 10 times faster than USB2 data transfer rates. But real world speeds are about 3 times faster for hard drives and about 3-5 times faster for SSDs depending on the speed of the SSD. USB3 flash drives don't use a cable of course but they are identified by the blue color in their connector. Cheap USB3 flash drives can be as slow as USB2 flash drives so beware when buying USB3 flash drives. There are many counterfeit USB3 flash drives which are actually USB2 flash drives with a blue color in their connector.

If you want USB3 speeds with your older PC, you can buy a 4 port PCIe to USB3 card if your motherboard has an open PCIe slot. This Inateck one from amazon supports USAP which will be compatible with the Inateck USB3 USAP docking station that I recommended. Scroll the webpage to the "Product Description" to see where it says it supports USAP.

Amazon.com: Inateck Superspeed 4 Ports PCI-E to USB 3.0 Expansion Card - Interface USB 3.0 4-Port Express Card Desktop with 15 Pin SATA Power Connector, [ Include with A 4pin to 2x15pin Cable + A 15pin to 2x 15pin SATA Y-Cable ]: Computers Accessories

But note that hard drives plugged into the USB3 docking station which are cabled to a USB2 port on your PC (without buying a PCIe to USB3 adapter card) will work fine in every respect except that they will work at USB2 speeds. USB2 will be able to playback any type of video without any problem, open photos instantly, open and save word processing or spreadsheet files instantly in human perception terms. ----- Where the speed difference comes in is like when you are doing a backup, it could be up to 3 times faster if the docking station is using a USB3 cable plugged into a USB3 port. Or when you are transferring a large file like a movie or a lot of smaller files, USB3 will do that about 3 times faster than USB2 will.

Internal drives are the ones that are installed inside of your PC. They are mounted in a hard drive cage and are not meant to be removed.

External drives are the ones that are connected to the PC using a cable. (USB or eSATA or firewire cable) These external drives either come in enclosures or are plugged into an external docking station.

So if you have only one docking station, you can backup the internal drives to a hard drive in the docking station. But you cannot backup an external drive to another external drive unless you buy a second docking station.

Note that your current external drives (that are in enclosures and connected using USB2 cables) can be used if they are working and you don't have to buy a docking station. Especially since your PC only has USB2 ports. You only need to buy a docking station if the SATA to USB electronics in an enclosure is not working but the hard drive in the enclosure is OK. Or if you want the convenience of just plugging and removing hard drives without fiddling with the cables. Or if you buy a PCIe to USB3 adapter card and want to work at USB3 speeds.

Welcome.

 

@mck

Thank you again so much for your time, assistance and for the information. Thank you for the clarification, but need a little more.Sorry, if I repeat myself a little etc.

I now have the clarification that I can use USB3 devices with USB2 ports on my motherboard. Just to make sure I got this one though. So, my understanding from what you replied with is that you can use a USB 3.0 PCI or PCIe card inside my open PCI or PCIe slot of my motherboard even though those slots are USB 2.0 without any problems, I just won't get the USB 3.0 speeds. How am I doing so far?

Also, what flash drives would you recommend?


I will also reread your reply to make sure I didn't miss anything.

Thank you again. Wonderful help!

 

@mck

What do you think about these?

https://www.amazon.com/Inateck-Aluminum-Dual-Bay-Tool-free-FD2102/dp/B01GYOLGSA/ref=sr_1_97?ie=UTF8&qid=1478987555&sr=8-97-spons&keywords=dual+bays+hdd+docking+station&psc=1

Amazon.com: Sabrent USB 3.0 to SATA External Hard Drive Lay-Flat Docking Station for 2.5 or 3.5in HDD, SSD [Support UASP] (EC-DFLT): Computers Accessories

Amazon.com: Inateck USB 3.0 to SATA External Hard Drives Lay-Flat Docking Station with Dust Cover for 2.5 Inch Accessories

 

Another Question @mck

I watched a couple of videos on this product, the Inatek docking station that you recommended. They showed that the drives seem to wobble inside a bit. Is that normal? Do you have that same issue on your older Thermaltake one? Should that be of concern?

Also, I read a reviewer on the dual one that it goes to sleep in transferring files, would that be the case on the single one? I would hate for that to happen when copying stuff.

 

It appears that you don't quite understand it yet. PCI or PCIe slots in a motherboard are not related to USB in any way. The PCI and PCIe slots are just high speed connectors on the motherboard in which adapter cards can be plugged into. PCI slots are older technology and cards plugged into them use the full slot like this card:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-361-_-Product

PCIe (also called PCI Express) slots are the newer technology. The PCIe slots in a motherboard can be 1x, 4x, 8x or 16x. Each card slot is larger like this:




PCIe to USB3 card looks like this:




Note that the part that plugs into the motherboard slot is rather small since it is for a 1x slot. But also realize that with PCIe, a 1x card can be plugged into a larger 4x, 8x or 16x slot and still work.

In summary, the PCI or PCIe slot in a motherboard is not related to USB in any way. You just plug in the adapter card which converts the PCIe slot to USB3 ports. All of the USB3 electronics are on the card itself.

I've bought SanDisk, PNY, Silicon Power and Kingston USB3 flash drives and have been satisfied with their USB3 speeds. But each company has different USB3 speed flash drives. For instance the SanDisk Extreme USB3 flash drive is quite fast but it costs more than lower end SanDisk USB3 flash drives. You get what you pay for. Amazon is "usually" safe but it's still possible to get counterfeit USB3 cards according to some user reviews. Look at the user reviews to get an idea. Buying USB3 cards from a local retailer like BestBuy, OfficeMax, OfficeDepot, Walmart, etc is normally safe though it costs a little more. Again, you pay more for faster USB3 flash drives even from the same company.

You're welcome.

 

I personally don't care for the layflat type enclosures. I don't like having to uncable the USB3 cable and the power cable from the enclosure and then having to recable the USB3 and power cables to another layflat enclosure. I like being able to just pull a hard drive out from a docking station and then plugging another hard drive into the docking station. Plus bare hard drives take up less space in my safe than drives in enclosures.

Just be careful and gentle when removing or installing bare hard drives in a docking station and you'll be fine.

 

It is not an issue. It is normal and won't cause you any problems at all. Don't worry about this at all.

Like I said before, I read that dual docking stations can have problems. I've never had any problems with any of my single docking stations, nor have three of my friends that I setup with single docking stations to do their backups on. I won't buy dual docking stations. If I want two external drives, I'll buy two single docking stations.

 

Thank you very much for explaining. I appreciate the thorough answer on all my questions. Very Helpful. That is wonderful that I can place a USB 3.0 card in my motherboard, but the speed will be determined by motherboard specifications. So sometime in the future, I will upgrade my motherboard to get faster speeds. I was believing for a long time that I couldn't put a USB 3.0 card inside my motherboard because the motherboard specs said PCI or PCIe slot was 2.0. I thought it had to match. Thanks to you I have learned better. *Smile

I think the card that I tried this a few years back and it wasn't able to fit or hard to put in. Not sure though if it was a 1x card. I didn't want to press too hard and break it. The Inateck ones what is the slot number 4x etc., I couldn't seem to see it in the description.

 

Thank you for your input and it is helpful in making my final decision.

Will do.

 

Thank you for your help and explanation. I feel more comfortable now.

 

Hey Everybody,

I should have posted this awhile ago so I am sorry. I had so much going on. I have some diagnostic information from CrystalDiskInfo to share about my corrupted hard drives. Let me know your thoughts or any other possible ways to make this accessible before I format it. I have to learn how to read those number. Thank you again!

FIRST ONE








SECOND ONE IS THE ONE THAT WAS TURNED INTO A RAW DRIVE

 

There are two things that will make your data unrecoverable:

1. A physical defect/failure on the disk.

2. The data gets corrupted (the file allocation table points to the wrong location) and the data gets overwritten with new data before it can be corrected.

If you don't have a physical failure - something caused your File Allocation Table to get corrupted such as a power cycle. Any data that was overwritten after the FAT was corrupted and before it was repaired, will be lost.

 

The speed of a USB3 card plugged into a slot in your motherboard is determined by the USB3 electronics on the card, not by your motherboard. The data transfer rate of a slot in your motherboard is way faster than USB3 speeds. EDIT: PCIe 2.0 x1 slots have a data transfer rate of 500MB/sec. USB 3.0 theoretical max data transfer rate is 640 MB/sec (5 Gbps). But USB devices max data transfer rates max out at about 100-200 MB/sec. So the PCIe 2.0 x1 slot data transfer rate is way faster than real world USB3 data transfer rates.

What is the brand and model number of your motherboard? Maybe I can look it up and tell you what kind of slots are on it. Since you have an older motherboard, it may only have PCI slots and not PCIe slots.
EDIT: I just noticed that you did list your system specs and that you have a ASUS: P7P55D EVO motherboard. That mobo has two PCIe x1 slots so you will be able to plug the Inateck PCIe to USB3 card in one of those slots.

You don't call the card a slot number. It is called a 1x or 4x or 8x or 16x card and therefore has the appropriate connector. The Inateck PCIe to USB3 adapter card that I linked to earlier has a 1x connector. You can tell that by looking at the connector on the card and matching it up with the picture of the PCIe slots that I posted previously. It's easy to tell by just looking at the card's connector and looking at the picture of the different slots.

 

Thank you! I appreciate your time and assistance. I guess the for sure next step is to reformat the drives.

 

Hey mck,

Thank you again for your great help. That is great to know that I can use the Inateck USB card inside my motherboard. I appreciate the correction and clarification about the PCI or PCIe cards etc.