Drive Problem(s)

[Lil Frier]

I have a SSD boot drive, with two HDDs (640GB WD Black, 3TB WD Blue) attached for mass storage.

Got home last night, and am not sure what happened. I went to my computer, and it was sitting on a weird desktop. It was an older iteration I used a while back. I finally realized that what had happened was my PC must have crashed while I was away, and tried to boot to the Blue HDD after the fault (it had been a boot drive for a short period of time, and I guess W10 was still on there). There was some explorer.exe error on the screen, but I admittedly did not record what it said. Regardless, the PC wouldn't do anything but display that error message. So, I restarted it, and sent it back over to boot to my SSD.

After the reboot, I realized that I didn't have access to stuff on that Blue drive. It's just giving me an "Access is denied" message. I disconnected the SSD and tried to boot back to the HDD, but it refused. It basically get to the W10 startup screen (with the W10 icon and rotation circle), and just sits. Restarted it, and it did a scan to repair the drive. It got through, said it was 100% complete, and never progressed. It sat overnight, for about 7 hours, and never moved.

So, I restarted it again. The drive, during this, has shown 0 bytes across the board (used and available). The Black drive has no issues and works just fine. I've since disconnected it, just to keep it out of the way. Anyone know of a way I can try accessing the thing and/or recovering the data? I'd rather not just try to format it and lose stuff without seeking outside help first.

 

[RLGL]

Physically disconnect the drives that do not have the main OS. Try to fix windoze repair tools. If not fixed try https://neosmart.net/EasyRE/

 

[Lil Frier]

Physically disconnect the drives that do not have the main OS. Try to fix windoze repair tools. If not fixed try https://neosmart.net/EasyRE/

The issue isn't booting into Windows. My mass storage HDD had a copy of W10 on it (had my SSD die and need replaced, so was using it as a short-term boot drive), and THAT is what I couldn't boot into. I've got the computer running off the SSD again, and the broken drive is just hooked up as a secondary drive for holding stuff. However, it's not letting itself be read AT ALL.

I suppose, when I get home, I can grab the W10 disc (if I can find it, moved recently) and try to run a repair on the W10 installation on that storage drive, and see if that resolves it. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[Ketchup]

Have you run any western digital diagnostic utilities on the drive?

Don't forget to rule out the SATA cable and the SATA port.

 

[Lil Frier]

Have you run any western digital diagnostic utilities on the drive?

Don't forget to rule out the SATA cable and the SATA port.

I have not. This happened late last night, then I woke up, went to work, then had a family function until I just got home now. I'll have to find one (or more) and see if that gives any answers.

Regarding the SATA, I've tried multiple configurations. I unhooked all of my other drives, but the SSD, and it works fine. I then hooked those same cables (data and power) to the HDD, no dice. I tried booting with the Black drive connected, it's fine. Tried the Blue with those same cables, doesn't work.

 

[Lil Frier]

Finished a Data LifeGuard extended test, took about 6.5 hours. The drive passed, no bad sectors. So, the drive itself might not be bad. Now, if I can find the W10 disc (or one of my blank ones to burn a new install disc) when I actually wake up, I'll try repairing the drive that way.

 

[Ketchup]

Virtual fingers crossed.

 

[Lil Frier]

Hmm...no dice. I tried running the W10 repair on the HDD, and it just said that it couldn't fix it. Tried booting to it again, and it just failed. Tried a new boot drive to connect to it, no change. Swapped the SATA cable and replaced the power cable. It's still showing "0 bytes," and telling me that the drive is not accessible ("Access is denied.") when I try to go to it.

Not really sure what else I can try. No bad sectors, can't repair the OS, can't navigate to the drive as a secondary drive. Going to look around on the Internet for more options.

 

[Lil Frier]

Also, I looked around, and saw someone had the issue about a decade ago. The solution was this program: https://www.diskinternals.com/partition-recovery/

However, I don't know the program myself, or if it is reliable/trustworthy in 2016. Anyone heard of it, or have an alternative that would be worth trying?

 

[Ketchup]

Seatools for DOS always did well for me. Have had it on a Bootable CD for years. Always did better at detection than the Windows version.

 

[Lil Frier]

I'm going to take a look at SeaTools for Windows (not sure where the DOS version varies, or how to use it). However, if it's a Seagate tool, is it going to be useful for a WD drive? I guess we'll find out.

I went and grabbed that random Partition Recovery program I mentioned. I figure, the worst-case scenario is I have sketchy crapware on a clean OS install that I don't mind overwriting if it gets infected.

Anyway, it seems to be updated, and quite handy. From the looks of it, I'm finding the stuff on the drive pretty well. The problem is that the "free trial" is really just a proof-of-concept, rather than the suggested reality that it is a trial of the full software. What does that mean?

Well, kids, it means that I can find my files, but only stare blankly at them. If I want to actually retrieve them, they want $140. How about no? I'm pretty sure nothing on the drive is worth $50 more than I paid for the drive itself. As such, I'm going to look for another partition recovery tool, ideally one that's free (or a LOT cheaper). We'll see if SeaTools is functionally helpful, but my luck thus far suggests not. Anyone else got an idea of a partition recovery tool I could give a go?

 

[Ketchup]

Data can be worth WAY more than the drive itself. This is why people have backups. And seatools can fix errors on the drive the OS is on when it's outside of the OS. Since this is your other drive, the Windows version may work well for you here.

 

[dlerious]

MiniTool Partition Wizard https://www.partitionwizard.com/

 

[Lil Frier]

Data can be worth WAY more than the drive itself. This is why people have backups. And seatools can fix errors on the drive the OS is on when it's outside of the OS. Since this is your other drive, the Windows version may work well for you here.

I went ahead and tried that thing, but it doesn't seem to offer anything useful. I got a program with a couple of links to Windows dialog boxes (for device/drive management), and a generic health scan (which the drive passed).

I've taken to trying something I found online, can't recall the name. The main problem I seem to have now is that I'm trying to save a 3-TB HDD without a spare 3-TB HDD to recover it to. Instead, my only backup option is that 640-GB Black. What sucks about it is that I don't need more than 640 GB (well, truly 596 GB) saved. I wish the tool would just let me pick what I want to recover to the drive. Instead, it seems to want to operate on an "all-or-nothing" level. Trying another scan of the drive with this tool, but it seems like the lack of a destination drive is the problem I might not have a solution for.

At that point, I might try the below suggestion, or look to another piece of software that will hopefully let me pick and choose what to resurrect from the dead before finally giving this thing the full wipe it clearly needs.

MiniTool Partition Wizard https://www.partitionwizard.com/

If my current attempt doesn't work, I'll take a look there.

 

[Lil Frier]

I think I finally got it. I had to go through about 6 different recovery programs to find a good one. I was able to fish out about 600 GB of stuff. The rest, I'm not too worried about losing.

Basically, the program I got successfully found the missing things. However, it broke it up into vaguely titled folders. I found my video files among the mess, and my music (both the stuff I listen to and the .zip stuff I didn't have on my phone as a backup). Luckily, I kept my important documents on my other SSD, so they weren't lost. However, the titles on the folders were all auto-generated "Folder ####," so telling what was where proved tough. I'm just going to call it a success that I found all my old coding projects and schoolwork I wanted to recover, along with 600-ish GB of media.

Now, I've gotta try that WD program again, in the hopes it will do a full-on wiping of the drive and get it back to a working state.

 

[Lil Frier]

Doing all of this is extremely new to me, so I'm learning on the fly with some of it. I finally got what I wanted off the inaccessible drive, and wiped it with WD's Data Lifeguard. Now, getting it back up and running is the new thing I've never done before.

The drive had to be initialized, asking if I wanted to use GPT or MBR. Quick search told me MBR is the most common, but dated, option. It also said MBR has issues beyond a 4-TB drive. Given this is a 3-TB drive, I figured that's not my problem. However, upon initializing it as MBR, it split into two partitions--one 2 TB in size, the other with the remaining 750 GB or so. Not being a fan of that, I redid it as GPT, so it's a single, full-size partition. Any reason I wouldn't want to stick with GPT (I'm not going to be trying to use the thing on an XP system or anything), or why I wouldn't want the thin as a single partition?

OK, but how do I access this thing again..? The drive didn't mount itself ever after a reboot or with the initialization. Can't format it if I can't reach it. Found my way to the Disk Management and got it back and mounted. Now, I've just gotta finish some data transfers, then look at wiping my other 3 drives and resintalling Windows (after this mess, I'm just going nuclear and putting everything into a clean, fresh state and hoping drives stop losing stuff). Also, at the suggestion of someone else here, I'll be doing some hardware testing (already did the memory, PSU's next, hopefully the board's not bad).

The one thing I really need to look into learning now, and I've meant to do it, is setting backups. Anyone got a good tutorial on how to set up automatic backups?

 

[Prova moni]

Very Nice Solutions. I appreciate it.

 

[PliotronX]

Glad you got the goods back! GPT is only a concern if it is your boot drive on a pre-UEFI motherboard. It has to be UEFI to boot to GPT but it can be a data drive no problem with an ancient board.

 

[dbailey]

Doing all of this is extremely new to me, so I'm learning on the fly with some of it. I finally got what I wanted off the inaccessible drive, and wiped it with WD's Data Lifeguard. Now, getting it back up and running is the new thing I've never done before.

The drive had to be initialized, asking if I wanted to use GPT or MBR. Quick search told me MBR is the most common, but dated, option. It also said MBR has issues beyond a 4-TB drive. Given this is a 3-TB drive, I figured that's not my problem. However, upon initializing it as MBR, it split into two partitions--one 2 TB in size, the other with the remaining 750 GB or so. Not being a fan of that, I redid it as GPT, so it's a single, full-size partition. Any reason I wouldn't want to stick with GPT (I'm not going to be trying to use the thing on an XP system or anything), or why I wouldn't want the thin as a single partition?

OK, but how do I access this thing again..? The drive didn't mount itself ever after a reboot or with the initialization. Can't format it if I can't reach it. Found my way to the Disk Management and got it back and mounted. Now, I've just gotta finish some data transfers, then look at wiping my other 3 drives and resintalling Windows (after this mess, I'm just going nuclear and putting everything into a clean, fresh state and hoping drives stop losing stuff). Also, at the suggestion of someone else here, I'll be doing some hardware testing (already did the memory, PSU's next, hopefully the board's not bad).

The one thing I really need to look into learning now, and I've meant to do it, is setting backups. Anyone got a good tutorial on how to set up automatic backups?

Just use the built in Windows Backup program and hook up an external drive to back up to.

 

[PliotronX]

Just use the built in Windows Backup program and hook up an external drive to back up to.

Be very careful with WB! You have to change settings in the registry and run a scheduled task about every month to ensure the target drive does not run out of space. When it fills up, it stops backing up but the control panel interface lies and says that it backed up when it doesn't! This is how an office hit with ransomware lost six months of accounting data (yes, dumb of them but still).