External HDD shows up blank, contains files

[Goatanizer6]

Hi,

So I have this Seagate backup plus external hard drive. It got disconnected by accident and wouldn't show up at all in My Computer after that. The lights are working, the disk is spinning and seems functional.

I looked for a solution on the web and noticed that it was showing up as "offline" when going to Disk manager --> Populate.

Now I used Cmd prompt to bring it back "online". Now the disk shows up in My computer and it is listed with the letter E: but doesn't display the space that should be left and I can't enter it. It says it's corrupted or something along those lines when I try to open it.

Going to disk manager --> populate indicates the correct amount of space used by files. I'm pretty sure this is salvagable but I'm stuck there.

Any help is very appreciated!

Thanks.

 

[deustroop]

It says it's corrupted or something along those lines when I try to open it.

What exactly is the error message ? Is there another machine to try reading the drive ?

 

[seagate_surfer]

Hi,
just to make sure: is there data on the disk that you need to recover?
Did you try to plug the drive into another machine to see if it is recognized there?

 

[edcoolio]

Try all of these things. If you fail miserably, begin with Recuva and go from there.

 

[Goatanizer6]

Yes there is data on this drive, I was half way through backing it up when I accidentally stumbled on the USB cable and it got deconnected.

Connecting it on an other comp does the same thing. It shows a drive that's inaccessible. with 0 out of 0 space.

The message I get when I try to open it is : E is not accessible, incorrect parameter (my windows' in an other language, so it translates roughly to that). Weird because earlier I'm sure it was saying it was corrupt/damaged.

Anyways, I downloaded this program Minitool partition wizard. It is showing the unallocated space and volumes on the drive. Don't know what to do with it from this point.

Something important : I had some encrypted data (only files, no system info) on the drive and I don't want to mess that up. I'm not sure if Minitool sees it as "unallocated" space or as used space. Any help with that would be great

Thanks

 

[Ketchup]

How far did you get with Partition Wizard? Here is a tutorial:

www.partitionwizard.com/partitionmagic/partition-recovery-wizard.html

 

[deustroop]

If the drive appears in File explorer you can scan it for errors using /properties/tools/error checking.

You can also run Chkdsk manually at the command prompt
1. R Click Start, and then Run.
2. select command prompt admin
3. Use one of the following procedures: • To run Chkdsk in read-only mode, at the command prompt, type chkdsk, and then press ENTER.
• To repair errors without scanning the volume for bad sectors, at the command prompt, type chkdsk volume:/f, and then press ENTER.

Note If one or more of the files on the hard disk are open, you will receive the following message:
Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be checked the next time the system restarts? (Y/N)
Type Y, and then press ENTER to schedule the disk check, and then restart your computer to start the disk check.
• To repair errors, locate bad sectors, and recover readable information, at the command prompt, type chkdsk volume:/r, and then press ENTER.

NOTE
This operation may remove all data on the drive depending on the file conditions, so /f may be the more cautious op at this point.

I've also seen some users recommend booting with an Ubuntu Live disk to access the drive and attempt recovery of the files But I have not done that.

 

[Goatanizer6]

Hello again all. Thanks for your helpful answers.

Property ---> Tools doesn't work unfortunately. Says "the verification could not be executed because Windows doesn't have access to the disk"

I began a Partition wizard search for lost/deleted partitions (still running, takes forever!) and it found a bunch of deleted/lost 2.45 mbs partitions labeled "BOOT". I read somewhere else on the net about someone to whom the same thing had happened and it was suggested that some boot file may have become corrupted lost. There must be some procedure to restore it somehow? I just downloaded Seagate diagnostic tool so I guess I might have good chances with that

Also, I tried a recuva scan and it seems like it's finding the files. However I'd prefer to restore the drive all at once rather than having to meticulously extract missing files. I'll definitely do that if nothing else works though.

Thanks!

 

[bruceb]

Try the information on this page: http://www.easeus.com/storage-media...ernal-hard-drive-not-detected-recognized.html

 

[deustroop]

Try booting in safe mode. There are several ways to do this, see
http://www.digitalcitizen.life/4-ways-boot-safe-mode-windows-10
Windows may provide more info on the problem when you look at the drive.

 

[Azuma Hazuki]

If you're comfortable in Linux (or know someone who is), you can try booting to a live medium that has TestDisk and seeing if that works. It's command-line and can be a little scary if you're not used to it, but I've recovered data from drives in this condition with it before.

 

[Goatanizer6]

Thanks to all for your answers. Couldn't work on this too much lately but now I am back at it and tried a bunch of things.

Here are some details
- Device manager will sometimes list the disk in unknown devices and at other times it is listed under disk drives with it's model name. Right now it is simply listed as "disk drive" under disk drives. Anyways, seems a bit random and erratic. I tried updating the driver and either it updated indefinitely with nothing happening or it said I already had the latest driver.
- I tried updating firmware, apparently it was already the latest version.

I did a testdisk analysis (thanks Azuma Hazuki!) of the disk and it came up with 3 partitions
There was Dell utility FAT 16 > 32
and under bad sector count it listed 2 partitions
- * HPFS - NTFS
- P HPFS - NTFS

Following the scan this message came up :
The hard disk <3000 gb/2794 gib> seems too small ! <<3750 / 3492 gib>
Check the hard disk size : HD jumpers settings, BIOS detection
The following partition can't be recovered ---> FAT16 LBA

Now I don't know why the heck testdisk is telling me this? Seems like the drive is saturated with data? That doesn't make much sense since I had just made plenty of space before I started my backup and it wasn't even like 20% done when the disk got accidentally unplugged and I started getting those problems.

2794 GB should be the correct HDD size.. I don't know where these 3750/3942 figures come from? Don't have too much experience with this software..

Anyways, if someone understands anything from what I posted and knows what would be worth trying... well I am eager to receive your advice!

Thanks

 

[Goatanizer6]

One more thing : I thought about re-writting the partition in testdisk for FAT 16 > 32, the one which is apparently unrecoverable. I I think this is why the disk doesn't work properly. Now I am pretty much a noob at this stuff and I am just guessing. Would this be correct?

 

[Elixer]

Hold up, if you actually want to recover files off the HD, then job #1 is to clone that sucker onto another HD, and then used the cloned copy of the HD to do all your recovery utilities.

Teskdisk is what I would have used as well.
Was there a FAT partition on the HD?
Did you do a deep scan?
Pictures would be nice of what you are seeing.

 

[bruceb]

Try what is listed at this link:
Note you will need the program TestDisk, which can be obtained at that site as well.
You should run it under DOS mode for best results

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Advanced_FAT_Repair

 

[Goatanizer6]

Hold up, if you actually want to recover files off the HD, then job #1 is to clone that sucker onto another HD, and then used the cloned copy of the HD to do all your recovery utilities.

Teskdisk is what I would have used as well.
Was there a FAT partition on the HD?
Did you do a deep scan?
Pictures would be nice of what you are seeing.

Yeah, I'd clone it. Problem is that I don't have an other drive big enough to do that uh. Might have to get one
As for FAT partition, well on the seagate site, it says the drive should be formated NTFS out of the box. Weird because testdisks and partition wizard scans revealed a partition that apparently shows as FAT? As for deep scanning, I haven't done that yet, just started one though.

Thanks for the boot repair link Bruceb, I'll try that. Since partition wizard showed all these missing boot partitions I guess it might be the thing to do. Not much chance I cause trouble to my files on the disk if this doesn't work, right?

Anyways, pictures incoming in the next post, that should probably clear a few things.

 

[Goatanizer6]

Windows screenshots, sorry if it's in damn french

Partition wizard scan, note that the disks are labeled differently that in Windows disk managing, that's a bit confusing. The problematic HD is disk 2 here.

Testdisk scan :

 

[Elixer]

Biggest problem is, once you write to the HD, and it goes wrong, it gets worse & worse to recover said files.

So, I would hold off anymore recovery attempts until you can clone it, with dd or whatever does a bit clone.

 

[Goatanizer6]

Just bought a new HD. Gonna try to copy everything to it with testdisk. Once that's done I'll do some tests on the old HD to see what may work. Anyways, thanks all, will update when recovery is over.