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

@mck

I have been looking at Inateck's other models and I am now considering going to the newer model I guess you can say. I would love to get one more opinion on this and whether I should go with the other model over the one originally suggested. I like the aluminum build.

Edit: Couple of things I just thought of. Also, does this have a power off switch like the other, will this sleep after idle function be a problem?

PRODUCT 1 (ORIGINAL)
Amazon.com Info
http://www.amazon.com/Inateck-Dockin...ocking+station

Inateck Info
Inateck - POP-UP HDD Docking Station FD1003 - HDD Docking Station

PRODUCT 2
Amazon.com Info
Amazon.com: Inateck Aluminium USB 3.0 to SATA Hard Drive Docking Station for 2.5 Accessories

Inateck Info
Inateck - Aluminum HDD Docking Station FD1101 - HDD Docking Station

PRODUCT 3
Amazon.com Info
Amazon.com: Inateck Accessories

Inateck Info
Inateck - HDD Docking Station with 2-Port Hub and SD Card Reader FD1102 - HDD Docking Station


Thank you again.

 

@mck

I went on Inateck's website and looked at their section of PCI-E cards and they have another one which I would be more interested because you can use it without having to connect additional power, but would love to get your opinion first before making any decisions.

PRODUCT 1 (ORIGINAL)
Amazon.com Info
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

Inateck Info
Inateck - 4-Port USB 3.0 PCI-E Card KTU3FR-4P - PCI-E to USB 3.0 Cards

PRODUCT 2
Amazon.com Info
Amazon.com: Inateck 4 Ports PCI-E to USB 3.0 Expansion Card Interface USB 3.0 4-Port Express Card Desktop for Windows XP/7/8, Mini PCI-E USB 3.0 Hub Controller Adapter, No Additional Power Connection Needed: Computers Accessories

Inateck Info
Inateck - Cord-free 4-Port PCI-E Card KT4005 - USB 3.0 PCI Express Card Works without extra power cable - PCI-E to USB 3.0 Cards


Thank you!

 

The aluminum versions 2 & 3 certainly look nicer than the product 1 version. But I'm skeptical about the auto sleep after 30 minutes "feature". I personally never put any of my hard drives to sleep. I really don't like the delay for the drive to wake up from sleep when I want to access it. Aside from using drives in my docking stations for backup, I also install drives to hold photos and videos. I want them to work instantly while I'm doing photo or video editing even if I return from a coffee break. If there's a way to turn off the auto sleep in products 2 & 3 then they look good, if not, then I personally wouldn't buy them. Your mileage may vary though.

Regarding product 3 over product 2, remember that as long as the docking station is plugged into a USB2 port on your PC, then all of the ports on the docking station product 3 will run at USB2 speed even though they are USB3 capable. If you want the convenience of a SD card reader and two USB3 ports handily available, then product 3 would seem to be a good choice.

 

Thank you mck. I appreciate your input. I will think about all your advice and make a decision by Black Friday. It is a hard decision though because I do like the look of the other models etc.

Any answer on my last question about the USB Cards?

Otherwise, I hope you had a great day today. Thank you again!

 

@mck,

I did some research and I found NoSleepHD - Home

This could be a solution to the auto sleep mode of the Aluminum Inateck model. Let me know your thoughts. Thank you!

 

@mck,

Sorry for the bombardment of stuff, I have another thing here I would like to ask you. Not sure about the accuracy at this point, but I came across this information that says if you have a hard drive not be in sleep mode like forever or either stopping hardware from entering sleep mode can reduce their lifespan overall. How accurate is that information?

Thank you again!

 

I personally don't mind connecting the power cable to USB3 adapter (Product-1) since it is just a one time thing when installing the card. It will insure that adequate power is available to all four ports on the USB3 card. A caveat is that when removing and reinstalling the card later on, one can forget to connect the power cable to the card and then think the card is not working (don't ask me how I know that) but one only forgets to do that one time *Wink.

Product-2 should work fine for all of your USB devices unless you happen to connect multiple devices that do not have their own a/c power adapter, like hard drives that depend on the USB cable for power, or external CD/DVD drives that have two USB cables, one for signal and one for power, and similar devices. Should be fine for multiple USB flash drives as they use minimal power from the computer's USB ports.

Products 1 & 2 use different USB3 controller chips on the card. AFAIK Product-1 uses the Fresco Logic chipset while Product-2 uses the Renasas/NEC chipset. Some folks prefer the Renasas/NEC chipset but I've seen user praise and complaints for both chipsets. If you like Product-2, then I would say it will be fine to go with it.

 

Thank you again mck.

If I can get a little more clarification on why wouldn't these devices work fine on product 2, with or without a a/c power adapter? That would be helpful. If I were to plug-in the device into product 2 that doesn't have their own a/c power adapter, would they not work? Just function not as good as the opposite? Not as fast? etc.


Going back to this. My motherboard say's that the expansion slots are PCI or PCI-E 2.0, does that 2.0 cause compatibility issues with any devices especially any devices that I might purchase we have discussed here. I know you mentioned that I could put those cards in, but I just want to make sure here because I don't think we discussed this one. Thank you!

How come they don't make PCI cards in USB 3.0? They seem to favor making PCI-E 3.0 cards.

Any thoughts about not having a drive in sleep mode and if it will reduce the lifespan of the product etc.?

Thank you for everything mck.

 

All USB2 or USB3 devices should work with product-2.

Where the "maybe" comes in is when multiple USB devices that draw more power to spin motors (and do not have a power cable to them from an a/c power adapter, also known as a wall wart) "might" tax the power capabilities of a USB3 card that gets all of its power from the PCIe connector. Say a user has two external USB3 hard drives that gets their power from the USB connector that's plugged into ports 1 and 2 of the USB3 PCIe card. The user also has an external CD/DVD drive plugged into ports 3 & 4 of the card. (External CD/DVD drives often have two USB cables. One for the USB signals and power + a second USB cable just to add additional power for the motor) ----- So now the user has two hard drives spinning all the time and when he uses the CD/DVD drive, there's a load of three motors spinning on the USB3 PCIe card. That plus the power used to drive the electronics of all three devices. All of that power has to come from the small contacts of the USB3 PCIe card connector plugged into the motherboard's PCIe slot. That "may" be a marginal condition for the PCIe slot's contacts.

On the other hand, if the USB3 PCIe card has an additional power connector on it, it gets the power directly from the PC's power supply and there's no strain on the motherboard's PCIe slot connector contacts.

The Inateck docking station gets its power from an a/c power adapter so there is no power drain on the USB connector to spin the motor in the hard drive. So one could install four docking stations on product-2 with four drive motors spinning all the time with no ill effects at all. Similarly, USB flash drives don't have motors so their power drain on the USB connector is minimal. So one could plug in four USB flash drives in product-2 with no ill effects.

Examples of external hard drives that get all of their power from the USB connector are the Western Digital passport series hard drives. I have a Buffalo DVSM-PC58U2VB portable DVD drive that gets all of its power from two USB cables. You can google it to see what I mean.

The 2.0 of the PCIe slot refers to the version number. PCIe 1x slots: Version 1.0 has a data xfer rate of 250 MB/sec. Version 2.0 has a data xfer rate of 500 MB/sec. Version 3.0 has a data xfer rate of 984.6 MB/sec. See the specs here:
PCI Express - Wikipedia

See the link above.
EDIT: I just realized what your question was. You are correct that USB3 adapter cards overwhelmingly use the PCIe slots. That's because PCI is an obsolete technology anymore. But they do have PCI to USB3 cards like this one that's sold at Newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-359-_-Product

I never worry about life span of hard drives by not using sleep mode. It's WAY WAY more important to me to have hard drives respond instantly whenever I want to use them. I just HATE IT when I want to use a hard drive and have to wait for it to spin the motors up and get ready for use. I never use sleep mode for any hard drive. ---- I do use moving screen savers for my monitor but don't put my monitors to sleep either.

Welcome. Glad to help.

 

@mck,

Thank you so much for this wonderful information and clarifications. I really appreciate your time. One more thing on the powerless USB card. The power drain that is occurring from the devices without a/c adapter using the USB card without power, I am assuming the worst possible outcome for the device using the card is that the speed gets tapped or the device just works slower etc.?

I am thinking that it is probably safest to buy the USB Card with power, but I will make my final decision on Black Friday.

 

My view (with no personal experience to verify it since I never bought a product-2 type PCIe USB card) is that the worst outcome from drawing too much power from the PCIe USB3 card is that the contact(s) in the motherboard's PCIe slot supplying the power could run hot and gradually ruin the power contact(s) in the motherboard's slot. But I don't think that would be a problem for you. Just buy docking stations that get their power from an a/c power adapter. Then you won't run into the power overload problem. If you do connect one USB device with a motor (like an external DVD drive) that gets all of its power from the USB card, it won't cause any problems.

See my response above. With that in mind, I think the product-2 card (as well as the product-1 card) will work fine for you.

 

Thank you mck! It looks like I am all set on that front. I can't think of anything to ask. Anything else I will definitely ask away! I hope your day went well!

 

Hardware is fine - the problem is 'most certainly software related. If chkdsk doesn't fix it, I doubt very much a third party recovery tool will.. here I'm thinking recuva, undelete etc...

Those disks are fine to format and reuse, however..

 

Thank you Superfly! Well, the good news is at least I was able to recover some of my files from EaseUS Data Recovery. I still wasn't able to go through all of them yet, so I am hoping all of them are there. The few directories I went through there were some files missing and some I found in other locations. Will see if I lost them all. At least I learned my lesson and I will change my backup method to something like image backups so if something like this happens again I will be prepared.

Good to hear that I can reuse these hard drives. By looking at the S.M.A.R.T information does it show any signs that my hard drives are going bad or do you think these will be good to go for years to come? Any future concerns? Do you have any sources I can go to so I can learn more about the S.M.A.R.T Information? I will also do a google search as well etc.

Thank you again!

 

@mck or anyone,

I have a list of internal and external hard drives Amazon. Would love to know what your input is on them. I was thinking on the WD Blue for internal and the My Book for External I am getting both styles. Thank you for any help you can give.

EXTERNAL DRIVES

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E3RH63A...I10FTTR5KHC0RS

or

https://www.amazon.com/Book-Desktop-...dp_ob_title_ce

INTERNAL DRIVES
Something in the list here

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_n...nal+hdd+drives

More towards the blue and @mck I know you go for green, but they don't sell those anymore except third party which I am not sure if I trust.

or

I will pick another brand that's price is cheap because for backups I heard you don't need the best drive. So I might by one that is in the $40 range.


Let me know your thoughts and thank you so much again for your time and help.