External Drive Failing? Copy Data Rate Slows to 0.

[Coldkilla]

When copying one or more files, the copy/data rate continually goes down the longer it is copying/moving. For example the copy rate starts at 20mb/s, it would slow down under 50kb/s. Eventually the disk cannot be read and sometimes disapears from the computer entirely as if the hard drive were disconnected. (The only way for the drive to come back has so far been ether waiting long periods of time between system startups, or formatting my primary PC.

I've got 470gb of data on this drive that I really need to get off but I'm not sure how when the transfer rate eventually slows down to the point of the drive disapearing.

Any tips?

 

[MalVeauX]

Heya,

How are you connecting to it? USB? eSATA?

I'd take the drive out of the enclosure and manually install it via the motherboard.

Very best,

 

[Coldkilla]

Thanks for the idea on taking it out of the enclosure (Its USB), I didn't even know that was possible.

I'll give it a try.

 

[Coldkilla]

The external drive is out of its case and plugged in internally now.

The copy process (of a 5gb file) is averaging 5mb/s, I'll let this transfer go and hope it at least copys over without disapearing from the system. I really don't care if it takes 2 weeks to copy the whole 470gb, I just want my stuff off of it lol.

 

[Blain]

Run Crystal Disk Info and see what it reports about the HD's condition.

 

[RebateMonger]

If the data is very high value (i.e. your company's accounting data or other irreplaceable data), then I do NOT recommend trying to fix it yourself. Get the disk to a professional data recovery house. Any attempted repairs could result in additional damage to the disk.

It could be caused by an overheating controller board on the drive. There are risks, but you could place the drive in a frerezer and run long power and data cables out of the freezer to a PC. Let it "freeze" for a while and then begin the copy operation.

I wouldn't recommend any long scans or repair software at this point since the drive could die during the test, leaving you without your data. Copy the most important data first and then work your way down the list. Know what you are going to do before starting. Don't bother copying Windows or programs. Just get the stuff you can't afford to lose.

It might help to freezer-bag the disk before freezing and to fill it with a dry gas such as "liquid air" and then seal it up. When re-warming the disk, if it's going to exposed directly to air, try to find the driest air environment posible to avoid condensation.

 

[Blain]

The freezer trick should be used if you're not going to pay for any data recovery.

 

[Coldkilla]

Yea I ran the CrystalDiskInfo program.

Of my 4 drives, this external one ran with a "Caution" message. The issues were:

Reallocated Sectors Count
Current Pending Sector Count
Uncorrectable Sector Count

Dunno if that is fixable or not. I'll keep trying to copy individual files.

 

[RebateMonger]

Yea I ran the CrystalDiskInfo program.

Of my 4 drives, this external one ran with a "Caution" message. The issues were:

Reallocated Sectors Count
Current Pending Sector Count
Uncorrectable Sector Count

Dunno if that is fixable or not. I'll keep trying to copy individual files.

The disk is failing. Perform data recovery (amateur or professional, depending on the risk you are willing to taek. And replace the disk. Don't bother "repairing it". The problem will likely return. Disks are cheap and data recovery is very expensive.

Finally, for the future, if you already don't do so, consider keeping ongoing backups of your system. They frequently come in handy and make disk failure not a big deal.

 

[Blain]

RebateMonger,
Would simply cloning the drive onto a fresh one be the best option?

 

[RebateMonger]

RebateMonger,
Would simply cloning the drive onto a fresh one be the best option?

My fear in cloning is that if the disk is bad enough, the clone will fail, and now you have nothing. I'm sure there's professional data recovery tools for doing cloning under adverse conditions, but I'm not familiar with them.

If there are lots of bad files and Explorer won't finish, you use RoboCopy, telling it not to retry. It'll skip a bad file and go on to the next, unlike Explorer which will quit and you have no idea which files copied and which didn't.