Hard drive scares - data corruption on migration, CRC errors via USB 3.0, bad sectors?

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H4RR7H

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Sep 26, 2015
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Hi all,

I'm having a pretty difficult time diagnosing a problem I've been having recently and would appreciate any help. Let me outline things:

I have a WD 1Tb USB 2.0/USB 3.0 powered external hard drive, which could be 4 years old. This is about 80% full with all of my backup files. This is rarely in use - I only move contents onto it once a month or so.

I have been using an 11" netbook for 4 years with this external hard drive via USB 2.0 without issue. I just acquired a brand new desktop.

I copied all of my documents including my iTunes library to my external hard drive. I then cut and pasted these onto my new desktop computer.

Weeks later I noticed particular mp3 files were exhibiting audio anomalies and others corrupted album artworks. I checked the same files on the original netbook which I found did not contain these errors by cross comparison.

I also found one very large and important word document was corrupted in the migration and would not open on the new desktop.

Via USB 3.0 ports on the new desktop I also encountered a CRC error when trying to extract an archive from the external hard drive to the new desktop. However, the same archive extracts successfully if using the USB 2.0 ports.

I ran check disk on the external hard drive which returned no errors. I ran a memory test on the new desktop, also resulting in no detectable issues.

At amiss, I tried copying the affected files again onto my external hard drive from my netbook, and cut and replaced them on my new desktop via USB 2.0. These files survived this smaller migration.

At that point, I had put down the corruption issues to the USB 3.0 port(s) on the new desktop computer. So I continued to use the external hard drive via USB 2.0 only.

*

More recently I had discovered additional mp3 corruptions in my iTunes library, and went about replacing them the same way as I had after the initial migration. However, this time, via USB 2.0, some tracks were corrupted/unreadable when attempting to cut and paste them from the external hard drive to the new desktop.

Via the external hard drive properties -> tools I checked the drive for errors, including the scan for and attempted recovery of bad sectors (pretty sure this is just chkdsk again). I did this multiple times returning "no problems were found on the device or disk. It is ready to use".

I don't know at what stage of data migration the corruption is occurring. I assume it's more likely to be at the hard drive read/write than at either computer's read/write.

I'm too afraid to continue using the hard drive, or move my backup files off of it in case they are corrupted in the process.

Any other tests I could be running? Should I order a new HDD ASAP and attempt to move everything via copy and NOT cut? It'll be a nightmare to test every file for corruption.

Thanks in advance!
 
Solution
DSzymborski
Its far more likely that the hard drive is in the early stages of failing - and external hard drives tend to be riskier because they're not safely ensconced inside the PC but on the outside.

I'd use something like Recuva and recover files one-by-one and then test them. There's not much else you can really do.

It's no help now, but I urge you (as I urge anyone in your shoes) to have a more robust backup plan in the future. If you have only one copy of a file and it's in your backup hard drive, it's not a backup - it's your original. Anything that's important enough to care about losing is important enough to backup, which means multiple copies in multiple locations and possibly multiple formats, not simply moving to another hard...
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DSzymborski

DSzymborski

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Nov 19, 2010
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Run Western Digital's Data Lifeguard diagnostic. You still have the original files on your netbook, right? If the hard drive is failing and there's file corruption, you need to use your originals on the old netbook, not possibly corrupted files on a possibly failing hard drive.

It's slower, but with a suspicious external hard drive being your middleman, it's far better to simply transfer the files from PC to PC over your network.
 
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H

H4RR7H

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Sep 26, 2015
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Thank you for the WD diag tool! I ran it on the external hard drive connected via USB 2.0 and voila, it stopped about a quarter of the way through:

Test Option: EXTENDED TEST
Model Number: WD Elements 1042
Unit Serial Number: WXF1E81NKWN5
Firmware Number: 1007
Capacity: 1000.20 GB
SMART Status: PASS
Test Result: FAIL
Test Error Code: 08-Too many bad sectors detected.
Test Time: 18:01:58, September 27, 2015
Click to expand...

So the HDD is dying... I still don't know why I was able to extract some archives via USB 2.0 vs USB 3.0 though. Or why check disk returned clean.

Subsequent issue to deal with: any tips on how to get everything off it safely?
(Yes, I still have original iTunes files on my netbook, however, this external hard drive has a LOT of files backed up from yonks ago.)

I don't know if the files are being corrupted when I write to the external hard drive from the netbook, or when I write from the external hard drive to the new desktop. But I guess with bad sectors it could possibly happen on either transfers during migration?

Should I delete extraneous data I don't need off the external hard drive and attempt to copy over only what I really need? Will more space minimize the effect of bad sectors? I assume copying small amounts at a time is a good idea? (...I might not have the foggiest what I'm on about).

I've ordered a new 2TB HDD. Cheers!

Edit: On a whim, I tried running the same test while connected to a USB 3.0 port instead. It ran the whole thing this time (about 4 hours):

Test Option: EXTENDED TEST
Model Number: WD Elements 1042
Unit Serial Number: WXF1E81NKWN5
Firmware Number: 1007
Capacity: 1000.20 GB
SMART Status: PASS
Test Result: PASS
Test Time: 22:18:44, September 27, 2015
Click to expand...

Now I am totally confused. Is the drive just failing sometimes at this point? Is it my new desktop/usb ports? Should I still be jumping ship on this HDD?
 
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DSzymborski

DSzymborski

Curmudgeon Pursuivant
Moderator
Nov 19, 2010
20,873
5,106
106,640
Its far more likely that the hard drive is in the early stages of failing - and external hard drives tend to be riskier because they're not safely ensconced inside the PC but on the outside.

I'd use something like Recuva and recover files one-by-one and then test them. There's not much else you can really do.

It's no help now, but I urge you (as I urge anyone in your shoes) to have a more robust backup plan in the future. If you have only one copy of a file and it's in your backup hard drive, it's not a backup - it's your original. Anything that's important enough to care about losing is important enough to backup, which means multiple copies in multiple locations and possibly multiple formats, not simply moving to another hard drive and then leaving it. With storage media, USB flash drives, and cloud storage so inexpensive, a hard drive loss ought to never leave you any more concerned beyond the price of the hard drive!
 
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Solution
H

H4RR7

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Oct 10, 2015
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4,510
To conclude, as the old HDD "PASS"ed the WD diagnostic I kept it connected to the same USB port for the last 2 weeks and was able to transfer everything to a new HDD today without a hitch! Either I am very lucky or the drive was not actually broken and something else was going on... but I am now disconnecting and abandoning the old drive. Too risky.

Yes I know it wasn't a truly methodical back up - I now plan to acquire a second drive as soon as I can afford to and clone the new one. Thanks for your help!
 
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