Windows 10: Harddrive Failure or Hardware Failure?

I ran SeaTools overnight, but wasnt able to view the log before school. I'm at school now and won't be home until super late, so I'm not going to be able to do anything/add to the thread for at least a day.

I believe disc manager did assign it a letter. It is given a letter when I connect to the PC and, again, when I'm in safe mode it stays connected (except when I run SeaTools, it disappears, but gets scanned).

It has a 12 volt (I think it's 12 volt) power supply that gets connected to an outlet. It is USB 3.0. I haven't transferred any files yet because I hardly have access to much; let alone important stuff LIKE IN BACKED UP SCHOOL WORK.

 

Thanks Jumanji for joining the thread. Hope this has a happy ending.

 

i have a few minutes before bed so i took screenshots.

I attached a screenshot of my Disk Manager. "Bertha 5" is the problematic drive.

i could not run MiniTool 9.1 in safe mode (which is the only way i can gain any access to the troubled drive) but i took a screenshot anyway because of the toaster popup in the bottom right that i get when i plug in the drive. It shows up for a moment in explorer and then fails; giving that message. i also get an I/O error when i am in safe mode and try to open most folders on the drive.

ALSO i ran SeaTools and THE DRIVE PASSED.

how safe is it to use Recuva, or something, to salvage what i can hen that time comes by the way?

 

"except when I run SeaTools, it disappears, but gets scanned"

SeaTools for Windows - Seagate does not officially support it for Windows 10, but reported working alright by users.

Please do the following:

Create a shortcut for SeaToolsforWindows.exe on the desktop.

Shut down your PC and then boot it. Allow a few minutes to settle down. Plug in only your 8TB external. Once the safely remove icon appears on your System Tray ( do not click on it) , click/double click on SeaToolsforWindows.exe shortcut on the desktop straightaway and allow it to scan. Does it find the drive now? ( If you open "Computer", open Explorer or even Windows Management, the drive may get locked and Seagate may not enumerate the locked external drive thereafter)
If it finds the drive, select and do the basic tests ( except Fix all , and advanced tests). Post the test results and a screenshot of Drive Information.




Note: Do the long generic only if Short Generic fails.

 

OK, our posts crossed. Good to know that Seatools passed the tests.

You may go to sleep now. Let me examine your screenshots and decide on the next step.

 

Continuing,

Since Windows booting normally does not recognise the external drive, there is no point in running any data recovery software riding on that lame horse *Smile. We have seen it with Partition Wizard already - it did not show your drive. ( Again run Partition Wizard straightaway without opening anything else locking your drive and try.)

Your data seems to be there, almost 6TB with 2TB free space. We shall put Windows to rest and try to access the drive booting with Live Linux.

At the moment I feel that it is some sort of file system corruption since SeaTools seems to have given a clean chit. ( I would still like to know how long it took for the Short Generic and the long. Since it is 8TB, it should have taken a definite time. If on the other hand it finishes off in a jiffy in milliseconds and gives a pass that result is invalid. It has read 0 TB to give you that result.)

Create a Lucid Puppy pendrive - use an empty flash drive since all data in it will be lost -, boot from that pendrive. If it can access the drive and read it, copy the files to another drive.

Creating a Lucid Puppy pen drive : My post #8 here https://www.sevenforums.com/hardware...ml#post2936753

That will in turn take you to my thread Lucid Puppy way to recover files from a non-bootable computer https://www.sevenforums.com/software...-computer.html Straightaway go to the topic Recovering files from the non-bootable Internal Drive:

In your case it will be your not-accessible 8TB external drive.

So get going and let us know how it goes and if you have any problems in executing the exercise.

 

I'm at school (as usual) but want to let everyone know I'm still around. I do run Linux on a laptop and that's always been my go to for stuff like this, but it did not recognize my drive when I plugged it in. BUT ALL I DID WAS PLUG IT IN AND WAIT. I didn't bother trying to use terminal to try and force a mount. There is certainly other things I could have tried when I had Linux open.

I will try to your Lucid Puppy prompt as soon as I can. This has all caused me to get a little behind in school work. I'm also still waiting on some money to buy a new INTERNAL drive to move all the stuff too when we get this thing back up and running.

Thanks again, guys. You rock and I'll get back to you as soon as I get the time this week.

 

i am having trouble starting up Lucid Puppy

lupu_528.sfs not found


EDIT: Realized i was using an old version, im going to try 6.3 when it is doen downloading

 

i get these messages and then it all ends with a blank screen with an underscore on the top left corner. i am unable to type anything

Also; i plan on rescuing the most important stuff first, but still don't have space to rescue everything and so i am going to try and buy a hard drive tomorrow. i want to get a NAS system eventually and so it would be nice if i could get a NAS hard drive and use that in my PC until buy an actual NAS bay for it. But how possible is it to do that? i looked online and some people seem to get it to work as an internal drive and some do not.

 

I'll avoid the data recovery aspects.

I used a Western Digital NAS drive, Red, with no issue. It has a SATA and power port just like all the rest. I used it for a monthly backup. There are commercial grade NAS drives which are very expensive and I'm not sure they are even meant for Home NAS's. Different connector.

I run WD Black drives in my PVR's and they run 7/24. Work great.

Do some research on your home NAS, I'm sure it will say Sata drives. Would be interested to see why a retail drive wouldn't work. I would avoid Green drives at all costs. These, in one mans opinion don't perform well, certainly not in PVR's and intense data moves

Ken

 

@billybag, You are jumping into unknown territory . Recreate Lucid Puppy (Ubuntu Compatible Build) 5.2.8 flash drive. This version has been tried and tested successfully by a number of users..

Most probably you had plugged in the flash drive into a USB 3 port . Plug it into USB 2 port and try to boot. (Lucid Puppy is not compatible with USB 3 )

 

i already tried 5.2.8. that's when i got the lupu_528.sfs not found error and i am using a 2.0 port


This sounds dumb, i know, but i think im just going to rebuy the same hard drive because it is my cheapest option right now. i could get a hard drive meant for a NAS system and put it in my computer, but i still don't seem to be getting a confident "yes that will work fine" from anyone. i could get a regular 8TB to put into my computer, but that will be a real waste if i do want to set up a NAS later. and i still don't have space to transfer all my files to

i am redownloading and recreating a LP 5.2.8 drive now

EDIT: My bad. i was using USB 3.0 apparently. they aren't blue so it threw me off.


EDIT: i tried using every USB port i have on my computer, including all my 2.0 ports and i am getting the same error as the one i noted in post #21

 

I am not sure whether the problem you experience is specific to your PC or Windows 10. ( Sometime when I am free, I shall try Lucid Puppy on my wife's Windows 10 Laptop. But that is not going to happen anytime sooner - till she is away for a few days.( I am still on Windows 7/ standard BIOS and no probs with Lucid Puppy. *Smile) )

You may try the following:
1. If the PC has the CSM( Compatibility Support Module) setting in BIOS/UEFI, enable it first.
2. Disable Secure boot temporarily. ( Remember to restore secure boot afterwards when the job is finished)

You may also burn a CD with that ISO and boot from that CD to eliminate USB from the equation.

Alternative: Try Live Peppermint ( tutorial by Golden) https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorial...cy-backup.html

 

burning it to a disk worked. However, my mouse and keyboard do not work in LP but im going to try different things

EDIT: got the mouse working ill check back later

Looks like things are going good. i am copying some important school files first and thinking of my best course of action. i think i will buy a 4TB internal and do my very best to transfer things to wherever i can find space until the day comes that i have money for a more permanent solution. i have about 1TB free on an internal, 100GB with amazon (that i may upgrade to 1TB) and about 800GB on another external that i may be able to make more space on if i upload all the photos to my Amazon.

i keep posting updates in the next few days

 

Glad you got going finally.

You must have enabled Legacy USB support option in BIOS/UEFI setup. That makes USB keyboard and mouse accessible to Lucid Puppy.

Do not keep your 8TB external permanently plugged in. Unplug it and keep it under rest till you plug it again for recovering data. Though I am inclined to think it is a file system error, bad sectors cannot be ruled out. ( If some of the recovered files are corrupt, then it is definitely due to bad sectors)

After you have recovered all data, format it in Lucid Puppy. I think it has Gparted in it. ( just make sure you format your 8TB external and not your system drive *Smile)

You can then plug it into Windows , run Seatools for Windows and check its health.

Enjoy





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PmlM39wwJA