HDD Doesn't Work. But Shows Up w Letter In Disk Mgmt

sja2412 · Feb 14, 2018

Hi, my external USB HDD (2GB Seagate) was working fine and just started having issues.

It shows up in My Computer (windows 7), but when I click on the HDD, I just get an hourglass and windows explorer says not responding.

The HDD shows up under Disk Management as formatted NTFS and has a drive letter assigned (G). It also shows the accurate amount of total/free space.

I've done a lot of research, and saw that people recommended trying to assign a different letter. When I try to assign a new letter, Disk Management just stalls/hangs.

I'm able to go into the command prompt and change to G:\ . I can even run "dir" from G:\ and get a listing of my folders in the root (G

directory. But then the command prompt hangs and does nothing when I try to change directory to one of the folders.

I've downloaded various programs to try to recover the data (including Disk Drill), and it doesn't seem to even begin scanning for files.

I also downloaded HDDScan. It won't even let me generate SMART data for the HD.

Any ideas on how to proceed? Thank you very much.

sja2412 · Feb 14, 2018

Update: Upon further exploring, it seems that the HDD works *very* briefly -- for a few seconds -- when it's first plugged in and then stops. If I'm very quick, I can possibly open a sub-directory from G:\ in cmd, but then everything else will stop.

However, the HDD is still spinning the entire time and appears to be "on" -- even when it's not working in windows.

Also tried a different USB cable. That doesn't seem to work, either.

****

In TestDisk I get:

Disk /dev/sdc - 2000 GB / 1863 GiB - CHS 243201 255 63
Current partition structure:
Partition Start End Size in sectors

Partition: Read error

*=Primary bootable P=Primary L=Logical E=Extended D=Deleted
>[Quick Search]
Try to locate partition

seagate_surfer · Feb 14, 2018

Sorry to hear you're running into trouble with your external drive, sja2412. A few simple troubleshooting steps you could try would be to try the drive with a different cable, in a different port, and in a different computer. For more info, see our Knowledge Base article: USB External Troubleshooter.

You can also try downloading our free diagnostic software SeaTools to see if it will scan the drive for errors. For more info, here's another Knowledge Base article: How to Use SeaTools for Windows.

sja2412 · Feb 14, 2018

seagate_surfer :

Hi, thanks for the reply, but I already tried different cable, different port, different computer. I also downloaded SeaTools and it doesn't even recognize my drive (Windows Disk Management Does). Please let me know how to proceed next.

sja2412 · Feb 14, 2018

TestDisk 7.1-WIP, Data Recovery Utility, February 2018
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
https://www.cgsecurity.org

Disk /dev/sdc - 2000 GB / 1863 GiB - CHS 243201 255 63
Partition Start End Size in sectors
P NTFS 0 0 1 243201 80 62 3907029167

Boot sector
ntfs_boot_sector: Can't read boot sector.
Status: Bad

Backup boot sector
ntfs_boot_sector: Can't read backup boot sector.
Status: Bad

Sectors are identical.

A valid NTFS Boot sector must be present in order to access
any data; even if the partition is not bootable.

>[ Quit ] [Rebuild BS] [ Dump ]
Return to Advanced menu

AtlBo · Feb 14, 2018

If you have a backup of the contents of the drive, you might be able to fix this using Active@ Partition Manager (free for all features btw available at Major Geeks) to delete the partition. That should get rid of the multiple boot sectors on the drive, but will also destroy the data of course. Without backup of the contents of the drive, you may be in for a long search for some kind of code that will give you the ability to delete one of the sets of boot sectors. At least you know they are identical. It still might not work anyway. Still, maybe there is something out there that would give you access at least to the data without having to have pay a fortune to have it removed forensically.

I had an issue recently with a hard drive with W7 on the disk. Suddenly, the drive quit booting, and I couldn't explain why. I tried hoards of solutions, but I remembered the same thing had happened a while back, and at that time I had used a new drive to restore a backup after restored backups wouldn't work on the drive I had been using. BTW, I was seeing multiple boot sectors in BIOS too. Anyway, the backup worked on the new drive, so I thought at that time that the old drive was bad. Yet, I tested the drive, and it tested fine, so I kept it, and I'm using right now

. This time, after deleting the partitions and setting the drive MBR from GPT with Active@, the older drive somehow ended up being the one with the backup restored working copy of Windows on it, so I decided to use it until it goes instead of the newer one. Of course, this is for a drive that could be seen. It was also designated as a GPT drive.

Interestingly, to avoid using a new drive again, I had to delete all the partitionson the drive and then convert the drive from GTP to MBR, using Active@. Only then would a restored image boot. That was the absolute last thing I was going to try when to my surprise the image restore finally actually worked. If your drive is GPT for some reason Active@ will tell you and give you the option to convert to MBR. However, it may or may not fix the problem, and I guess there's no guarantee Active@ will even see the drive...

Phillip Corcoran · Feb 15, 2018

Your external hard drive is terminally ill mate - - - I've lost count how many Seagate branded externals have failed on me - - I only buy WD ones now - - I have three of them working side-by-side for triple backups & they've been 100% reliable for 8 years (still using them).

sja2412 · Feb 15, 2018

For whatever reason, the HDD seems to be sort-of working at the moment, and I was able to copy all the data to a new HDD. The SMART results are below. Several of them have yellow flags. I assume this means the drive is failing?

Report By: HDDSCAN v4.0
Report Date: 2/15/2018 1:11:16 PM

Num Attribute Name Value Worst Raw(hex) Threshold

001 Raw Read Error Rate 059 046 00000005CE-1C1B 006

003 Spin Up Time 098 097 0000000000-0000 000

004 Start/Stop Count 100 100 0000000000-00E0 020

005 Reallocation Sector Count 090 090 0000000000-0D0A 036

007 Seek Error Rate 065 060 000002005E-9A1B 045

009 Power-On Hours Count 055 055 251C610000-9B05 000

010 Spin Retry Count 100 100 0000000000-0000 097

012 Device Power Cycle Count 100 100 0000000000-00CD 020

184 End To End Error Count 100 100 0000000000-0000 099

187 Reported Uncorrectable Error 001 001 0000000000-4161 000

188 Reported Command Timeouts 098 098 0000040004-000D 000

189 High Fly Writes 100 100 0000000000-0000 000

190 Airflow Temperature 056 038 44 C 040

190 Airflow Temperature Minimum 056 038 35 C 040

190 Airflow Temperature Maximum 056 038 61 C 040

190 Airflow Overheated Count 056 038 19 040

191 G-sense Rate/Servo tracking 100 100 0000000000-000F 000

192 Emergency Retract Count 100 100 0100000000-005F 000

193 Load/unload Cycle Count 099 099 0000000000-0C1E 000

194 HDA Temperature 044 062 44 C 000

194 HDA Temperature Minimum 044 062 18 C 000

194 HDA Temperature Maximum 044 062 38 C 000

197 Current Pending Errors Count 083 066 0000000000-05B0 000

198 Uncorrectable Errors Count 083 066 0000000000-05B0 000

199 UltraDMA CRC Errors 200 200 0000000000-0000 000

240 Heads Flying Hours 100 253 015E0B0000-0176 000

241 Total Host Writes 100 253 0000008C74-AAA5 000

242 Total Host Reads 100 253 0000010251-5327 000

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