Seagate Backup Plus Disassembly HELP!!!

[tential]

I have ZERO clue what is happening but here is what I did:

Purchased Seagate Backup Plus
Did NOT format the drive
Loaded a TON of content onto it (2TB+) through USB
Took drive apart
Put in PC
PC recognizes drive, asks me if I'd like to format, none of my data is accessible

What happened? How do I fix this. Very scary lol....

 

[tential]

Additional Info:
So I right clicked and went to properties.
Device Type: Disk Drives
Manufactuerer: (Standard Disk Drives)

After hitting Populate on the Volumes tab, I get that it's
Disk Isk 1
Type: Basic
Status: Online
Partition Style: Master Boot Record
Capactiy: 3815447 MB
Unallocated Space: 160223 MB

So it knows how much is ON the drive, but I just can't access ANY of it. What's going on

It keeps asking me to format, but I don't want to format and lose all of my data!

 

[Cerb]

Put it back in the enclosure, and get your data off of it.

If you don't have room to store it on another device, that is what should be scaring you.

 

[Bubbaleone]

When you connected to the PC did you open Disk Management and assign it a drive letter? If you didn't then Windows just sees it as unallocated/unformatted disk space.

 

[Cerb]

Unless there's been a major regression, recently, Windows automatically assigns a new drive letter, if it can mount a partition.

 

[fzabkar]

Disk Isk 1
Type: Basic
Status: Online
Partition Style: Master Boot Record
Capactiy: 3815447 MB
Unallocated Space: 160223 MB

You can't have an MBR partition whose capacity exceeds 2TiB, if the sector size is 512 bytes. Some of Seagate's external products use 4KB sector sizes, while others have an embedded Linux file system.

You really need to reinstall the drive in its enclosure and, whatever you do, don't write anything on it whilst it is installed inside your computer.

If you are prepared to upload the contents of sector 0, then everything will become crystal clear. You could use DMDE to do this.

DMDE - DM Disk Editor and Data Recovery Software:
http://dmde.com/

 

[Bubbaleone]

Unless there's been a major regression, recently, Windows automatically assigns a new drive letter, if it can mount a partition.

Yes, I agree...in a perfect world. I personally have seen far to many instances of Windows failing to automatically mount volumes and my client glumly deciding that their data has vanished; a fact attested to by the numerous threads on that subject that a quick web search will reveal.

 

[spinejam]

When you connected to the PC did you open Disk Management and assign it a drive letter? If you didn't then Windows just sees it as unallocated/unformatted disk space.

This worked for one of my Seagate 3TB drives when I extracted it from the enclosure. I had tried all sorts of wacky stuff including converting the disk to a dynamic disk and back to basic but none of them worked. A simple drive letter assignment fixed it. (Windows 8 x64 OS)

 

[tential]

You can't have an MBR partition whose capacity exceeds 2TiB, if the sector size is 512 bytes. Some of Seagate's external products use 4KB sector sizes, while others have an embedded Linux file system.

You really need to reinstall the drive in its enclosure and, whatever you do, don't write anything on it whilst it is installed inside your computer.

If you are prepared to upload the contents of sector 0, then everything will become crystal clear. You could use DMDE to do this.

DMDE - DM Disk Editor and Data Recovery Software:
http://dmde.com/

I'm completely confused as to what "upload the contents of sector 0" means lol. I know about PCs but not that much! It makes sense though. I KNEW I should have formatted the drive the second I got it, instead I just used it...

I can't write anything to the drive though because well, it asks to be formatted first, and I'm not doing that!

Yes, I agree...in a perfect world. I personally have seen far to many instances of Windows failing to automatically mount volumes and my client glumly deciding that their data has vanished; a fact attested to by the numerous threads on that subject that a quick web search will reveal.

It has a drive letter. It's currently Drive D.

This worked for one of my Seagate 3TB drives when I extracted it from the enclosure. I had tried all sorts of wacky stuff including converting the disk to a dynamic disk and back to basic but none of them worked. A simple drive letter assignment fixed it. (Windows 8 x64 OS)

It has a drive assigned. I've never used a drive this large. My largest is a 1.5 TB. This is the first time. Argh, the worst part was I was going to buy another 4TB drive remove that drive, and use those cables to hook up my 4TB with data on it since I don't have the cables to the external anymore. That's why I removed it, I left them at school lol. My experience with PCs is NEVER simple. Always more problems lol.

 

[Cerb]

I'm completely confused as to what "upload the contents of sector 0" means lol.

512B*2^31 (32-bit signed int) = 2TB. That's the limit of DOS-compatible partitioning.

To access more, you need one of two things:
1. A GPT partitioned disk, which is different than MBR.
or
2. To use 4096B sectors with MBR, instead of 512B, which increases the limit to 16TB. Well, that can mess up some programs, so even though all the new drives internally use 4K sectors, they map them to 8 512B sectors each, to preserve compatibility.

But, big vendors got around it another way: use 4K sectors, and present it solely as a USB mass storage device, so the MBR compatibility never comes into play.

It has a drive assigned. I've never used a drive this large. My largest is a 1.5 TB. This is the first time. Argh, the worst part was I was going to buy another 4TB drive remove that drive, and use those cables to hook up my 4TB with data on it since I don't have the cables to the external anymore. That's why I removed it, I left them at school lol. My experience with PCs is NEVER simple. Always more problems lol.

Don't try to do stuff like this, if you want simple. If you want simple, you should move the data first, then do whatever with the hardware.

If data is important, you should never have it on just one device. And, in this case, the safest option would be to put it back in its enclosure, then transfer the data.

 

[tential]

512B*2^31 (32-bit signed int) = 2TB. That's the limit of DOS-compatible partitioning.

To access more, you need one of two things:
1. A GPT partitioned disk, which is different than MBR.
or
2. To use 4096B sectors with MBR, instead of 512B, which increases the limit to 16TB. Well, that can mess up some programs, so even though all the new drives internally use 4K sectors, they map them to 8 512B sectors each, to preserve compatibility.

But, big vendors got around it another way: use 4K sectors, and present it solely as a USB mass storage device, so the MBR compatibility never comes into play.

Don't try to do stuff like this, if you want simple. If you want simple, you should move the data first, then do whatever with the hardware.

If data is important, you should never have it on just one device. And, in this case, the safest option would be to put it back in its enclosure, then transfer the data.

I need to buy a WHOLE NEW drive then to be able to get my data off. lol.... Increasing my storage space without even wanting to. How funny. I opened Disk Management, and I can see that it has 3 partitions (I don't even understand this). 2 Unallocated, and 1 RAW.

Sucks but well, what can I do...
If there is any other way to access my data that'd be lovely. God I feel dumb, I just KNEW I should reformat the drive the second I got it, but I just didn't do it.
People online said it'd just work when I took it out and popped it in.

 

[fzabkar]

To save the requested sector, launch DMDE.

In the Select Device/Disk tab, select the Physical Drive, choose the Physical Devices radio button, uncheck the Show Partitions box, and click OK.

You should now see LBA 0 (sector 0) of your drive.

Now select Tools -> Copy Sectors

Start Sector -> 0
Number of Sectors -> 1

In the Destination pane, select File.

You will be offered a filename of lba_0_1.bin

Click Save, OK, etc.

 

[Cerb]

God I feel dumb, I just KNEW I should reformat the drive the second I got it, but I just didn't do it.
People online said it'd just work when I took it out and popped it in.

Formatting it yourself would not have done any good. Windows could read and write to the file system it had before you removed the drive from the enclosure, so the issue there is certainly to do with the software running on the enclosure itself. The problem was not backing up the data, prior to removing the drive. We've all been bit somehow by not having sufficient data redundancy. Regardless of how you handle this particular disk, keep in mind the relative frustration of this situation, v. having had another drive holding your data, so as to make sure it doesn't happen again, (the most common way is for the drive to fail, though, and eat your data as it dies--this is certainly one of the more interesting ways for your data to become inaccessible ).

At least one of the other partitions is likely the partition with the drive's software on it.

There may be ways around it, but if partitions don't make sense, I'm not sure how to gently introduce using dd (or ddrescue, to copy the entire disk to the new disk) and testdisk (a data recovery tool that can sometimes work magic), with a new drive, to see if the data partition can be recovered (to do it halfway safely, another drive of the same size or larger is necessary). I wouldn't trust any in-place method, if Windows cannot tell what the file system is.

 

[tential]

To save the requested sector, launch DMDE.

In the Select Device/Disk tab, select the Physical Drive, choose the Physical Devices radio button, uncheck the Show Partitions box, and click OK.

You should now see LBA 0 (sector 0) of your drive.

Now select Tools -> Copy Sectors

Start Sector -> 0
Number of Sectors -> 1

In the Destination pane, select File.

You will be offered a filename of lba_0_1.bin

Click Save, OK, etc.

Ok, and what does this do exactly lol? Sorry for being just dumb about this. There is no deal on the Backup Plus drives right now and I need that particular enclosure because I'd need the cables lol.

 

[fzabkar]

Sector 0 contains the Partition Table. It will show us exactly how your drive was setup. That's the first place you should start looking before you throw all sorts of data recovery software at the problem.

 

[Cerb]

Ok, and what does this do exactly lol? Sorry for being just dumb about this. There is no deal on the Backup Plus drives right now and I need that particular enclosure because I'd need the cables lol.

Do you have the enclosure?

If you have the enclosure, be a dick about it, and abuse a big box store's return policy, IMO, like Best Buy's, to get temporary access with the included cables. Seagate should have never used a proprietary connector to the drive (they sell adapters for the cables, now, so you might be able to get one of those off the shelf instead, and not abuse the return policy). Get your data onto a new drive, return the 'new' external, and then go do whatever you were going to do anyway.

 

[tential]

Do you have the enclosure?

If you have the enclosure, be a dick about it, and abuse a big box store's return policy, IMO, like Best Buy's, to get temporary access with the included cables. Seagate should have never used a proprietary connector to the drive (they sell adapters for the cables, now, so you might be able to get one of those off the shelf instead, and not abuse the return policy). Get your data onto a new drive, return the 'new' external, and then go do whatever you were going to do anyway.

True good idea. I think I'll actually buy one though. I had used half the space anyway and now that I'm getting a VPN..... haha I'll definitely need more space.

 

[Dufus]

My guess is while using it with Seagate's SATA / USB adapter the sector sizes were both logically and physically seen as 4kiB but when you went SATA direct that changed to 512B & 4kiB.

IOW all the sector pointers will be out. If you look at the RAW partition size it would be 1/8th of the size it was with 4kiB logical sectors when identified correctly. The OS boot sector and FT will also be out by a factor of 8 hence why it is seen as a RAW partition rather than as an NTFS partition.

Good news is all your data should still be intact as long as you have not written to the disk and can be recovered by using the Seagate SATA to USB adapter.

 

[tential]

My guess is while using it with Seagate's SATA / USB adapter the sector sizes were both logically and physically seen as 4kiB but when you went SATA direct that changed to 512B & 4kiB.

IOW all the sector pointers will be out. If you look at the RAW partition size it would be 1/8th of the size it was with 4kiB logical sectors when identified correctly. The OS boot sector and FT will also be out by a factor of 8 hence why it is seen as a RAW partition rather than as an NTFS partition.

Good news is all your data should still be intact as long as you have not written to the disk and can be recovered by using the Seagate SATA to USB adapter.

Bad news is I actually NEED one of those adapters. Why wouldn't I be able to just emulate it as USB or something so I can see/use my data.

 

[fzabkar]

I have heard that some people have been able to recover their data using R-Studio. Apparently they were able to select 4KB-sectoring in one of the program's options. Or perhaps they used Seagate's data recovery software (which is an OEM version of R-Studio).

 

[greenhawk]

Bad news is I actually NEED one of those adapters. Why wouldn't I be able to just emulate it as USB or something so I can see/use my data.

putting it back into the enclosure is the way to go as that inclosure includes the needed seagate usb to sata controller.

You can not emulate it as what you ware trying to get around is seagate's hack which is to get around the issue of address space via USB. The original USB design only intended to work with a maximum of 2TB of addressable space. With a 3TB drive, some fudging was required.

 

[tential]

putting it back into the enclosure is the way to go as that inclosure includes the needed seagate usb to sata controller.

You can not emulate it as what you ware trying to get around is seagate's hack which is to get around the issue of address space via USB. The original USB design only intended to work with a maximum of 2TB of addressable space. With a 3TB drive, some fudging was required.

Ya, sucks, so I need to buy another 4TB HD so I can get the USB cables/power cord since I don't have them anymore.

I got a VPN though so not too worried about filling it up. Wish I had gotten these answers when I had originally asked though.

 

[UaVaj]

problem is the the external usb drive controller. that controller is not native sata.

if you pull the drive out of the external enclosure and connect directly to sata port. window cannot not read the drive and will request you format the drive.

your only option is to put the drive back into the external enclosure. connect the usb. copy that data to somewhere else. remove the drive from the external enclosure. connect the drive to the sata port. format the drive. copy that data back.

here is a kicker. each model/make of usb/sata controller is unique. if the usb/sata controller ever fail. even if the drive is perfect. data is unretrievable! unless you can find an exact controller off ebay.

that is why some motherboard have native external sata port for external drives. so any computer with native sata port can read it.

here another kicker. that drive does not have a warranty once removed from the external enclosure for internal usage.

-----

live and learn - let just say i have two 3tb internal sata drive that used to both be external usb drive.

 

[tential]

problem is the the external usb drive controller. that controller is not native sata.

if you pull the drive out of the external enclosure and connect directly to sata port. window cannot not read the drive and will request you format the drive.

your only option is to put the drive back into the external enclosure. connect the usb. copy that data to somewhere else. remove the drive from the external enclosure. connect the drive to the sata port. format the drive. copy that data back.

here is a kicker. each model/make of usb/sata controller is unique. if the usb/sata controller ever fail. even if the drive is perfect. data is unretrievable! unless you can find an exact controller off ebay.

that is why some motherboard have native external sata port for external drives. so any computer with native sata port can read it.

here another kicker. that drive does not have a warranty once removed from the external enclosure for internal usage.

-----

live and learn - let just say i have two 3tb internal sata drive that used to both be external usb drive.

Actually, that last bit isn't really true. Many people have submitted their drives that were in Seagate backup Plus for warranty that they used as internal. At least, that's what I read anyway.

It's been an ANNOYING wait to wait for a 4TB Backup Plus that is 150 dollars. I saw them all the time, it's been like a week almost and haven't seen one. I can't increase my library at all right now! So sad!

 

[Cerb]

Actually, that last bit isn't really true. Many people have submitted their drives that were in Seagate backup Plus for warranty that they used as internal. At least, that's what I read anyway.

The two aren't in contradiction. The drive itself could be reformatted, destroying your data, and work as an internal. Likewise, a new internal drive could be installed into the enclosure.

The issues with sector size and placement make for a purely data-centric problem. The drive is the same an internal. The USB converter chip has had its firmware altered to write to it in a special way, so your data is effectively laid out in a proprietary fashion on the drive.