2TB external USB HD unreadable -- "RAW" --- Fixed (for FREE!)!!!

[Muse]

I was checking out what was on one of my external HDs Sunday. The drive is a Western Digital Green 2TB WD20EARS. I've bought about 3 of these and not one hasn't failed on me sooner or later. This had just one partition, primary.

Clicking on top level folders Sunday, when I got to the last folder, Windows (XP) indicated that the data in that folder couldn't be read, was corrupted or something like that. I went to "Tools" for that HD and asked Windows to "fix" the drive. Don't remember if I checked the box for recovering Bad Sectors. Well, next thing I know the whole drive was unreadable. Disk Management indicates that it's "Healthy," allocated but RAW. The size seems right, but the NTFS formatting isn't recognized.

Western Digital Data Lifeguard showed the drive fine, the quick test passed and I can't see anything in the SMART data that is a problem, but I don't know how to interpret it. Nothing stuck out as amiss.

I did some online searching and downloaded a "free download" being M3 Data Recovery. I ran that (didn't take long) and it showed my data. When I clicked the "Fix" button it wanted a registration key and clicking the "Buy Now" button directed me to a site that wanted ~$70 to register. To me "free download" shouldn't result in being shaken down to make it work for you so I uninstalled the program.

I did some more online searching and downloaded Testdisk (open source, and freeware) and ran it. A "Quick Search" gave me this discouraging result:
- - - - - -
TestDisk 7.0, Data Recovery Utility, April 2015
Christophe GREENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
http://www.cgsecurity.org

Drive E: - 2000 GB / 1863 GiB - CHS 243201 255 63

The harddisk seems too small! (< 2704 GB / 2518 GiB)
Check the harddisk size: HD jumpers settings, BIOS detection...

The following partition can't be recovered:

Partition ----------Start---------End-------Size in sectors
> FAT16 LBA 240049 239 53 328757 133 23 1425087313



[ Continue ]
729 GB / 679 GiB
- - - - - -

Well, I'm continuing and doing the Deeper Search in Testdisk. The Quick Search was ~5 hours, have no idea how long the Deeper Search is going to take, it's supposed to take longer. Edit: Looks like it's going to take maybe 6 hours.

The drive was probably around 1/2 full of data. It's not the end of the world, my critical data is on my NAS and backed up. The stuff I have on this that isn't duplicated elsewhere on my drives is HDTV recordings and some movie rips that I haven't gotten around to watching. I haven't documented what they are.

Edit: This site has what appears to me to be very good info very pertinent to my situation and it's written in excellent English.

Suggestions, explanations, advice, encouragement, wisdom, etc. sought and appreciated!!!

 

[Muse]

Nearly done running the Deeper Search function of Testdisk, here's what the screen says:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TestDisk 7.0, Data Recovfery Utility, April 2015
Christophe GREENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
http://www.cgsecurity.org

Drive E: - 2000 GB / 1863 GiB - CHS 243201 255 63
Analyse cylinder 206874.243200L 85%


Invalid FAT boot sector
0 D FAT16 LBA .........................240049 239 53 328757 133 23 1425087313
FAT16 LBA............................240049 239 53 328757 133 23 1425087313

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Don't know what it's going to say in ~50 minutes when it completes but I'm concerned that it says FAT16. The HD is undoubtedly in NTFS. I thought, based on what it says at the sites that after Deeper Search I'll have the opportunity to restore the backup boot sector. That may be... will see. Hopefully that will fix things.

 

[Muse]

All the utilities I found (3 of them) want ~$70 to "fix" the HD. Who knows if they would? Even one called: Free RAW Partition Recovery

I'll be darned if I'll pay a dime for an app called "Free RAW Partition Recovery"

Well, I'm running chkdsk /r on it now, been running for about 9 hours and it's doing all kinds of stuff. Hopefully Windows will see the drive when that's finished. If that fails, WD Data Lifeguard extended test is something I'll try. Looking at the directory names that the utilities showed me, I don't feel like retrieving the info on the drive is worth the $70 they are shaking me down for. Registering would give me a tool I might be able to use in the future but I have no idea if I'd get free upgrades. Screw em.

 

[Muse]

Well, after about 20 hours, a [boot drive]:\>chkdsk /r E: finally completed and the drive is no longer seen as RAW. Chkdsk found myriad errors of various kinds. I saved its output to a text file. I wasn't finding any online references to chkdsk use with HDs reported as RAW so I am somewhat surprised. However, my experiments with Testdisk each failed to do anything with the drive, so I turned to chkdsk in a WTH scenario.

The last line of the chkdsk output was:

An unspecified error occurred (6e74667363686b2e 1475)

So, I did not expect that the problem had been fixed, but looking in Explorer, there it was, with it's old name, all my folders, etc., around 1/2 of its 2TB capacity in use.

Here's the chkdsk output:
------------------------------------------------
Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.14393]
(c) 2016 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Users\[my name]>chkdsk /r e:
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is Elements3.

Stage 1: Examining basic file system structure ...
Fixing incorrect information in file record segment 2.
Fixing incorrect information in file record segment 2.
Deleting corrupt attribute record (0x80, "")
from file record segment 0x2.
Deleting corrupt attribute record (0xB0, "")
from file record segment 0x2.
Deleting corrupt file record segment 35832.
Deleting corrupt file record segment 61647.
Fixing incorrect information in file record segment 61649.
Deleting corrupt attribute record (0x80, "")
from file record segment 0xF0D1.
Deleting corrupt attribute record (0x48, "")
from file record segment 0xF0D1.
Deleting corrupt file record segment 95651.
108064 file records processed.
File verification completed.
Deleting orphan file record segment 35833.
Deleting orphan file record segment 56929.
Deleting orphan file record segment 61641.
Deleting orphan file record segment 61642.
Deleting orphan file record segment 61643.
Deleting orphan file record segment 61650.
170 large file records processed.
0 bad file records processed.
Correcting file name errors in system file record segment 2.

Stage 2: Examining file name linkage ...
Deleting an index entry from index $O of file 25.
Deleting index entry RP173 in index $I30 of file 22059.
Deleting index entry 1Read.txt in index $I30 of file 35831.
Deleting index entry debugging[Ebook in PDF format & Source Code].zip in index $I30 of file 35831.
Deleting index entry DEBUGG~1.ZIP in index $I30 of file 35831.
Deleting index entry 1Read_Dan_key.txt in index $I30 of file 56928.
Deleting index entry 1READ_~1.TXT in index $I30 of file 56928.
Deleting index entry OR4E03~1.MP3 in index $I30 of file 61633.
Deleting index entry Ornette Coleman.WKCR.6.14.2015.12AM-06AM.mp3 in index $I30 of file 61633.
Deleting index entry WK0FBF~1.MP3 in index $I30 of file 61633.
Deleting index entry WK1417~1.MP3 in index $I30 of file 61633.
Deleting index entry WK2D0A~1.MP3 in index $I30 of file 61633.
Deleting index entry WK4AB0~1.MP3 in index $I30 of file 61633.
Deleting index entry WKCR Ornette Coleman Tribute off MP3 Stream.6.14.2015.6AM-Noon.mp3 in index $I30 of file 61633.
Deleting index entry WKCR Ornette Coleman Tribute off MP3 Stream.6.14.2015.6PM-Midnight.mp3 in index $I30 of file 61633.
Deleting index entry WKCR Ornette Coleman Tribute off MP3 Stream.6.15.2015.Noon-6PM.mp3 in index $I30 of file 61633.
Deleting index entry WKCR Ornette Coleman Tribute off MP3 Stream.6.16.2015.12AM-06AM.mp3 in index $I30 of file 61633.
Deleting index entry WKCR Ornette Coleman Tribute off MP3 Stream.6.16.2015.6AM-Noon.mp3 in index $I30 of file 61633.
Deleting index entry WKCR Ornette Coleman Tribute off MP3 Stream.6.16.2015.6PM-Midnight.mp3 in index $I30 of file 61633.
Deleting index entry WKCR Ornette Coleman Tribute off MP3 Stream.6.16.2015.Noon-6PM.mp3 in index $I30 of file 61633.
Deleting index entry WKCROR~2.MP3 in index $I30 of file 61633.
Deleting index entry WKCROR~3.MP3 in index $I30 of file 61633.
Deleting index entry WKCROR~4.MP3 in index $I30 of file 61633.
Deleting index entry proview.jpg in index $I30 of file 78247.
Deleting index entry desktop.ini in index $I30 of file 99960.
118488 index entries processed.
Index verification completed.
CHKDSK is scanning unindexed files for reconnect to their original directory.
3 unindexed files scanned.
0 unindexed files recovered to original directory.
CHKDSK is recovering remaining unindexed files.
3 unindexed files recovered to lost and found.
Lost and found is located at \found.000


Stage 3: Examining security descriptors ...
Security descriptor verification completed.
Inserting data attribute into file 2.
Inserting data attribute into file 61649.
5215 data files processed.
CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
Usn Journal verification completed.
108048 files processed.
File data verification completed.

Stage 5: Looking for bad, free clusters ...
260061839 free clusters processed.
Free space verification is complete.
Correcting errors in the Master File Table (MFT) mirror.
Correcting errors in the uppercase file.
Correcting errors in the Log File.
Correcting errors in the master file table's (MFT) BITMAP attribute.
Correcting errors in the Volume Bitmap.
An unspecified error occurred (6e74667363686b2e 1475).

C:\>Users\[my name]>

 

[Elixer]

Just wondering how many corrupted files you have come across?

 

[Muse]

Just wondering how many corrupted files you have come across?

Don't know. How would I know? I posted the read-out by Chkdsk, it was just a select-all/copy, then paste of what was in the Command Window.

As indicated, there were files posted in \Found.000. I haven't looked there yet, presumably those weren't corrupted, just "lost."

 

[Elixer]

You basically randomly check on some files, and see if they are corrupted in any way.