Recover Semi Dead Hard Drive

[imdaman]

Seems like a bunch of my hard drives are suddenly dying this month... I have a usb external Seagate drive that I can't see in My Computer and in disk management, it says that the drive is unallocated. However, I am currently running GetDataBack and it has scanned 7278 files so far so I know its not completely dead. I was wondering if there is anyway I can make it show back up in My Computer. Would directly connecting it to my comp make a difference? and is there a way I can run Chkdsk on it even though i can't see it?


Any help would be appreciated

happy new years!

[Nelson37]

DO NOT run chkdsk on it until AFTER you have recovered all files. Otherwise, you are very likely to loose everything on the drive. You are currently running one of the very best recovery programs available, Why would you want to use Chkdsk?

After that, take it out of that POS seagate box, connect directly, partition, format, test, and use while remembering that it is unreliable.

[jman98]

I disagree with Nelson37's suggestion that you will "likely" lose everything if you run chkdsk on the drive. I have many years of IT experience and while I am not going to say that that could never happen, I do not consider it "likely". I'd call it a possible worst case scenario but I do not think there is even a 10% chance of it happening. However, the advice to get your important stuff off the drive first is completely sound and you should definitely do that because while I actually find it unlikely that chkdsk will cause you lose everything, it's not impossible for that to happen.

It's hard to say but I think if you directly attach the drive to your PC there is some chance that your PC might see it and you might be able to run chkdsk on it. I've seen Windows refuse to run chkdsk on drives and it can be difficult to force that to happen. If you do a web search on the subject you can find ways to try to force a chkdsk and they may work if your PC sees the drive. If it doesn't see the drive, you can't force it. Sometimes Linux CDs like the Trinity Rescue Kit can be booted and they can see drives that Windows has problems with. You might be able to do a chkdsk that way. Whatever is wrong with your drive I would not consider it to be trustworthy and if you get the data off it I would not recommend you use it again unless you accept that it's unreliable and it could fail again without warning.

[Nelson37]

All right, I'll put it another way.

If running GetDataBack fails, chkdsk would be more likely to "recover" anything as unrelated file fragments than it would be to fix anything. Also, IF you run chkdsk FIRST and get a mass of "recovered" file fragments written to the drive, GetDataBack is much more likely to fail.

If you have a simple boot sector problem or minor corruption, chkdsk is OK. In cases of serious corruption, it can do more harm than good, and I'd put the odds more like 50-50. It's a sliding scale, but the OP is already running something far, far better, at least in terms of recovering his files.

I would definitely attach the drive directly, but absolutely no way in hell would I run chkdsk in preference to GetDataBack if there was data I wanted. If not, I'd re-partition, re-format, THEN run chkdsk and use it for a scratch drive.

[bendixG15]

I checked the calendar, it's 2011.
The age of salvaging a "scratch" drive is over. Drives can be had for $50.00 or so....
So why screw around with a drive that has failed and most probably will continue to fail.

But then I do what I want and you do what you want and we know who is right

[imdaman]

I wanted to use chkdsk to see if it can fix the error. I'm not sure but I dont think GetDataBack can fix errors. But I am in the process of recovering my files. Seem like everything is there but a few errors.

[Nelson37]

It depends on what you consider "fixing" the error. If being able to view a picture that you could not view before, by having the corrected file on another drive, then GetDataBack will "fix" it. If instead you would prefer the same picture split into dozens or even hundreds of seperate, valid files which are NOT viewable, but valid files on the same drive, then CHKDSK can handle that for you.

Rule #1 in data recovery is DO NOT write to the drive in question.

[bevills1]

Once I had similar problems with photos on a SD card, and I used another file recovery program to recover the files and replaced the SD card. In this circumstance I suggest using GetDataBack to recover files and replace the drive unless you want to risk future data loss.