External hard drive failing

volcano1

Member
I have a 1tb toshiba external hard drive that i was in the process of moving data to my new pc i built when i ran into problems. Problems started when it asked to format drive after recycle bin was currupt. I did not have enough room on my laptop to transfer data so i said no. I tried using chkdsk f: /f and chkdsk f: /r both ran into alot segments that were unreadable. It gets to about 75% before running into issues. I have enough space on my new desktop where i can partion the ssd to temporarily hold data.. There is only 300gb of info on the drive. I find it hard to believe this drive is failing i heardly use it. I am wondering if the port or circuit board on external is going bad.
 

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
Try it in a different pc first. External drives tend to go out more often then internal drives.
 

volcano1

Member
Doesnt do anything on my laptop either. Should i plug it in as a internal drive. I was trying to use recuva but it cant connect to it either making me think the port might be damaged. Also drive isnt making any clicking noises like it normally would if it had died.
 
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johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
If the drive can be taken out of the case, definitely try it. Toshiba drives aren't that good though.
 

volcano1

Member
If the drive can be taken out of the case, definitely try it. Toshiba drives aren't that good though.
I was able to take drive out and plug it in. recuva appears to work but i am looking for cloning software that clones the used space and not the space i haven't used.
 

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
Just copy the data from external to a new drive. No reason to clone it. You want to clone a drive when its your boot drive.
 

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
According to your post, you said recuva was working. Do when you took the drive out of the case, you are still having problems accessing the drive?
 

volcano1

Member
There are a ton of files. Was hoping i could find an easier way. Want to selected the used space instead of just individual files. Anyways i turned my computer off and ran startup repair and now all i see is the msi logo saying fixing ( f: ) stage 1. Looks like it will take 13 hours to do what ever it is doing.
 

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volcano1

Member
Well it got 2/3 way though it. Restarted apears it didn't help. Anyways after an accidental shut down i had to reboot. Now i have to start over with recuva and now it says file system cannot be determined. That program i had to recover the files one at a time. Considering there are aparently thousands of files i don't think it was best solution.
 
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johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
Not much you can do if the hard drive is failing. Cloning isn't gonna work if it can't read the drive. This is why you keep a backup of important files as drives can go bad at any time. If you really need those files, you'll need to send it in to a file recovery company and see what they can do, It will be pricey though.
 

beers

Moderator
Staff member
Windows changed drive to a raw format.
That was likely a result of both the drive failing and the chkdsk function. RAW format means the file system is also corrupt.

You might be able to pull binary data off with dd in Linux, but if the sectors are unreadable or corrupt it will likely hang waiting on the drive to return data, to which it can't read or will have issues.

Do you have any specific SMART errors when viewing the drive in CrystalDiskInfo?
 
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