Recovering data from Seagate 2TB drive

HolyMeh

Honorable
Feb 21, 2012
9
0
10,510
Hi.
I restarted my pc for a windows update and after rebooting my 2TB Seagate harddrive was no longer detected. This is not my boot drive, it's the secondary drive i store all my files on. It's not detected at all in my computer, disk management window, or BIOS.

I bought a dual bay usb3 hard drive reader with built in clone function. I also bought a new hard drive. The reader reads the new hard drive fine, but the old hard drive isn't detected via this method either. The old drive does spin/make noise... it sounds fairly healthy noise to me but I'm no expert. No clicks or scratches though. Here's the interesting bit, when I try and clone the old drive to the new drive, I get the 4 flashing LEDs to signal clone started. The next stage is meant to be one led stays on to represent 25%, then two for 50% and so on. The old hdd gets hot when I try the clone: I left it cloning overnight and it never progressed to the 25% stage. After about 12+ hours I turned off the reader.

After attempting the clone I tried reading the new (cloned) hard drive and couldn't open it in windows explorer as it was said to be corrupt. I used some disk recovery and error fixing tools and a chkdsk and after lots of playing around could finally access the new drive. All of the folders and files are listed there, but 90% of the content won't open as it's said to be corrupt. Photos and video especially won't open, but some word documents seem 100% fine.

Looking for any info on how to either
a) fix the drive that isn't recognised by windows
b) get more data off the new drive which kind of cloned the old one
c) just info about what this means for the old hdd if it could still partly clone? does this eliminate the pcb as a problem or not? or does it not really give information about what's at fault?

Thanks.

Edit: Forgot to mention, the first thing I did was try the dead drive in another system with different power and sata cables. Not only does it not work, the system won't boot when the drive's attached to the mobo. No idea why it stops the boot, there's no boot media on it, it's just music/videos/photos etc.
 
Solution
Hi there HolyMeh,

That is really unpleasant.

a) In most cases, failing drive can't really be fixed.
b) You don't really have many options. If the data was already corrupted, you can't really get good video or a picture out of it. You can try different data recovery tools here: https://www.lifewire.com/free-data-recovery-software-tools-2622893
c) The cloning process could have been interrupted by unreadable sectors. (bad sectors) We can't really be sure if it is a PCB issue or not.

My suggestions are:
- If the data stored on the drive is really important, you better contact a data recovery company. Don't try DIY methods.
- It would really not hurt to attach the drive to another computer with different cables, even though, taking...
Hi there HolyMeh,

That is really unpleasant.

a) In most cases, failing drive can't really be fixed.
b) You don't really have many options. If the data was already corrupted, you can't really get good video or a picture out of it. You can try different data recovery tools here: https://www.lifewire.com/free-data-recovery-software-tools-2622893
c) The cloning process could have been interrupted by unreadable sectors. (bad sectors) We can't really be sure if it is a PCB issue or not.

My suggestions are:
- If the data stored on the drive is really important, you better contact a data recovery company. Don't try DIY methods.
- It would really not hurt to attach the drive to another computer with different cables, even though, taking into account what you've tried, the chance this would make any difference are slim.
- It would be nice to check the SMART status of the drive. Yet, as it is not being recognized by BIOS or Disk Management, this may not work. Thread on that: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/282651-32-best-diagnostic-testing-utility
- See if the drive would be recognized under Ubuntu: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/267999-32-recover-data-mode

Cheers,
D_Know_WD :)
 
Solution