External Hard Drive Cyclic Redundancy Error

arlon

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Jun 11, 2011
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Hello,

I was transferring files from my external hard drive (Seagate, 250gb) when the power shut off. When I use the drive again, I got this cyclic redundancy error and windows suggest to format the drive. I can't do it now since I have many important files. I tried disk check but the drive is inaccessible (even in cmd prompt). Any suggestion please?
 

John_VanKirk

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Hello,

Al's idea is great. If you can run chkdsk, add the /f switch to fix any bad sector errors.

When you are activeliy using a HDD, or manipulating files on it when you abruptly lose power, you may have corrupted the open file, or the file structure or partition of the HDD.

To evaluate the HDD health, go to DiskMgmt and in the lower graphical section, list what it says in the Drive Status box, and in the Volume Status box just to the right. This will be your external removable HDD, listed possibly Disk1, or Disk 2 or 3 depending on how many fixed disks are on your Win-7 computer. Normally it should say Disk ?2, Basic, size_in_MB, Online. If it's a problem with the Disk organization, list those findings for us.
 

arlon

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Jun 11, 2011
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Good day!

Thanks for all your replies. I tried John's suggestion but it didn't work. The drive is really inaccessible and sometimes it's giving me "drive invalid" error. I tried other methods but the only thing that worked was the SEA tools for windows from the manufacturer itself (I can't believe I haven't think of them in the first place). It took 16 hours for that application to fix my drive. Now it's working nicely. Thanks again everyone. Cheers! ;)
 

madeline3456

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Feb 7, 2012
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THANK YOU - THANK YOU - THANK YOU - T H A N K Y O U !!!!!

I was having the same problem. My boyfriend tripped over my hard drive cord and disconnected it from my laptop while I was transferring some files. I thought I had lost over 1TB of my life. This is the third time this has happened to me (when will I learn to backup my files, right?). Every online post that I have ever found has said that when in this situation, you are either SOL or stuck paying big bucks to get your data back. This time I found YOUR post and I tried Start -> Run -> chkdsk drive letter: /f and in minutes my problem was fixed. File after glorious file was repaired right before my eyes. You rock!

 

John_VanKirk

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Hi Madeline,

Glad to help. Sometimes bad things happen repeatedly to good people. Another option to consider is Carbonite. It's a backup solution "in the cloud" (on their servers encrypted), which occurs real time. Then if you have a HDD failure or HDD corruption, you can just download your image and you are back in business. It costs about $59 per year, but as compared to losing a TB of one's valuable files, or paying out thousands of $ for a commercial data recovery service, it's worth it.

Leo Laporte (the tech guy on radio/TV) always says "if you don't back it up, you can't get it back! Very true. It's like a term insurance policy on a Trillion Bytes of data,but instead of getting paid for the loss, you get the data back! Worth looking into.
 

0329march

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Feb 7, 2013
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I've got the same problem as yours. Too identical actually. I just want to know if you got yours fixed, Coz im really freaking out right now. Thanks.
 

Moon Wong

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Jan 1, 2014
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oheneba83

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Mar 30, 2014
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arlon, please how did you do it? I have downloaded the SEA tool for windows but don't know how to use it to fix my drive. I have the same issue. you can email me ebenforson2002@fastmail.fm. thank you.

 

GERARDO86

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Oct 12, 2014
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IT'S NOT WORKING FOR ME. I HAVE A WD 1TB EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE. I GET THE "DATA ERROR (CYCLIC REDUNDANCY CHECK)" IT COMES UP IN DISKMANAGMENT BUT NOT ON MY COMPUTER. SAYS DISK NOT INITIALIZED, BUT WHEN I TRY TO INITIALIZE IT IT GIVE ME TWO OPTIONS. MBR OR GTP, BUT IT ALWAYS COMES BACK WITH DATA ERROR MESSAGE. HELP ANYONE...ALL MY MEMORIES ARE IN THERE FROM WHEN I MET MY WIFE TO NOW MY 3RD CHILD!



 
Nov 3, 2014
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I have been having literally the exact same problem since yesterday. I swapped out my system drive and reinstalled windows on the new one. Then plugged in my old WD Green as an external to copy over settings and documents. After turning that drive off to reboot (so it didn't try and boot from the old drive), it has not been read by the computer. It won't mount or initialize and so I can't run CHKDSK or anything on it. Any ideas?
 

Eidolon3

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Nov 26, 2014
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Bumping this thread, because I have the very same problem, caused by accidental removal of the HDD during file transfer. The drive is not even being read as NTFS, but as RAW and there doesn't seem to be a way to format it, since it won't be read by windows. It seems like it might be time to give up on it, but I had my entire music library on there, spanning several hundreds of GBs as well as other personal data that I'd like to recover. I suppose at this point I would just go for being able to use the actual drive at all even if the data on it is gone.

If anyone knows anything I could do, that would be much appreciated.

 

Colonel Wai

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Dec 24, 2014
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Yesss! This is great solution works absolutely fine! in Windows 7, go to 'Start' and the search for 'cmd'. then type in type 'chkdsk C: /f /r' ( 'C' signifies the affected Drive) and windows will do the work for you. It took me about 50 hours but then my external HD (Verbatim) works again! Note that if you run this process on your laptop, make sure your machine doesn't automatically turn off the power after x- minutes.
 

Seanithon

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Apr 3, 2015
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My Toshiba HDD was doing this. I bet I wasted 3 hours in BIOS and CONFIG trying to figure it out. All I had to do was go to the HDD password tool website and install the HDD password security software. Once installed, it rebooted and the password prompt came up just like it used to and presto!! Done. I don't know if WD or Seagate has password options, but I hope this helps if they do!
 

hirekakrus

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Apr 18, 2015
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Hi! What's an HDD power tool website? Can you tell me what you did bec my toshiba hdd is also doing this thing and im freaking out
 

daidai

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May 12, 2015
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Hi There,
It happened to me a few weeks ago. I was using my HDD in win8. I plugged it in Mac of my kid and downloaded/backup all data, then reformatted the HDD and put files and folder back in place.
Good luck
Rabindra
 

John Reyn

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May 18, 2015
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To everybody posting about chkdsk not working for them,.. I propose a "possible" solution, that might sound crazy but read through.
A quick format on a hard drive erases only the map of where everything is stored (a.k.a. the File Allocation Table or FAT; NTFS uses a similar file structuring system which uses a bitmap to index the data), the data is left on the disk and will remain there completely intact UNTIL IT IS WRITTEN OVER (sorry for yelling, but that Bit is very important. . . . Get it? ...I'm a computer science major, nerd humor should be expected). So, unless you do a thorough format, which scrubs every sector squeaky clean, your data will remain on the hard drive! You will only be removing the table that is used to reference its whereabouts. While performing the format be certain to check box labeled "Quick Format" (it is checked by default) Now, proceed at your own risk, and only if you are left with no other options as you do run a risk of losing some content.
If you follow these instructions to a 'T' you will likely recover all of your data, aside with the corrupt bit that buggered your drive. If something doesn't make sense, please ask, I'd rather clarify than be condemned for bad advice.

1) If the drive you're trying to recover is the only drive in your system, you will need another system or hard drive available to boot to allowing you to access this dive as a secondary or external drive.

2) If after connecting the damaged hard drive to your system it does not appear in the "My Computer" (or "This PC" for Windows 8 users) you will be needing to take a couple extra steps ***listed under the asterisks following step 6***. otherwise proceed.

3) Right click on the drive from the location mentioned in step 2, and select "Format". (You may want to try "chkdsk" one more time just to be sure there wasn't just a data-mud-ball that got dislodged during the previous attempt).

4) After performing the quick format DO NOT OPEN TO VIEW OR SAVE ANYTHING TO THE DRIVE, as mentioned before we do not want to write over the now non-addressed files.

5) Download a FREE program called "Recuva" (Yes 100% FREE, no bull! and it is absolutely the best file recovery software to date that I have come accross) You can find it here: http://www.filehippo.com/download_recuva *NOTE* Don't save it to the hard drive your trying to salvage, refer to the large capital print in step 4.

5.1) After downloading the .exe installer, open it to begin the install.

5.2) The installer will ask you if you want context menu options added to recover files, this just means if you right-click on something do you want an entry added for this software.

5.3) Next it'll ask you if you would like to install CCleaner too, select "No". (Unless you want it, mind you that it's a registry cleaner... In modern computing registry cleaners do about as much good as those silly balance bracelets, windows is is capable of maintaining itself {for the most part} and you stand a chance of doing more harm than good if something gets "cleaned" that shouldn't).

5.4) Click "Next" then "Finish" and your off to the races...

6) Run Recuva, point it at the drive that's been bulling you, and watch it beat it into submission and steal back your lunch money... or files, whatever.

*********If this is you... "MY DRIVE ISN'T WHERE YOU SAID IT WOULD BE, @$$H013!!!"... then refer to the following:
2.1) Open up your control panel, I'll assume you know how to do this, if not you'll need to spin around in your chair 5 times then lean towards the door, exiting swiftly, while being careful not to hit the computer or any peripherals on your accelerated departure. Once out of the room contact your nearest nerd, or geek (nerd would be better, geeks are likely too busy playing D&D, WOW, or WEETPP (relax, it's not what you think... it stands for "What Ever Else The Protege's Play", ...but yes, it's pronounced the way you think it is). I realize it would've taken me less typing to just provide the steps for opening the control panel, but it would not have been nearly as entertaining ...for me anyways. Now then,..

2.2) Click "Hardware and Sound", then under "Devices and Printers" select "Device Manager". If you see a yellow triangle next to Disk Drives this is a good sign, or better yet you see your drive listed without any errors at all! On the other hand, if you don't see your drive you might want to check your connections, if everything is plugged in and you're still not seeing it, try right clicking on "Disk Drives" and selecting "Scan for Hardware Changes". Lastly, try another port, or even another machine... If you do see the yellow triangle or your drive proceed to the following..

2.3) Go to start and run "Disk Management" (windows 8 users just bring up the start page and begin typing), the search result will return something like, "Create and manage disk partitions", or "Disk Management". Open it.

2.4) Once disk management is shown, select the troublesome drive, the color of the bar on the drive indicates the current status. Black = unallocated storage space. Right click on the drive and select "Reactivate Disk", if the status of you disk reads "Foreign" select "Import foreign disks", this should, make your disk drive recognized by the system once more.

2.5) If you are able to successfully perform the aforementioned, try to once again run the command - "chkdsk X: /f /i" (replacing X with your drive letter), as you may have resolved the conflicting issue previously encountered. If chkdsk still flips out and throws a tantrum, then go back to pick up where you left off at step 3.

I wish you all the best of luck, may your files be recoverable and free of corruption and your wallets stay full! (Usually I charge $150 for data recovery...)

"Give a man a fish, feed him for a day... Teach him how to fish, and he can go get drunk by the lake and find his own damn fish!" - Jesus
 

PZ09

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Jun 16, 2015
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Daidai's advice of plugging the drive up to a Mac worked for me. After 2 days of trying various data recovery software and failing, it's recognized on the Mac and I am backing up my data. Thanks!
 

DLatham

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Jul 7, 2015
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Robert_4

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Aug 28, 2015
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over the years i have had pretty good luck connecting the offending drive to a linux computer. it will usually read all the windows files and directories and i am able to copy most of what i want to a linux directory...then copy out to a thumb drive. i use an ubuntu version of linux, very friendly and easy to use...i keep an old comupter around with linux just for these emergencies...if my main windows "c" drive fails to boot i remove it from the computer and stick it in the linux box as a "d" drive and recover the important files... if i have trouble with the external failed drive i will remove it from the enclosure and stick it in the linux computer as a "d" drive and read it...i know very little about the use of linux but have learned enough to recover many of my failed drives, does not matter if they were usb, sata , or isa drives...there are adapters on the market if you cant figure how to install it in an old computer formatted with linux. i used to use chkdsk with some success but sometimes it would have a mind of its own and delete the corrupt files i was trying to locate, or it would rename incomplete files to the point that i could not find them. it would also do unsavory things to directories it did not like. chkdsk has its place but i just dont like programs that alter the data before i recover the important stuff, thats why i like to use linux to take a look at the data and copy... but, why not use windows? good question.... bec the good windows box would be adverse to the same flaws in the offending drive that originally caused the problem....linux seems to overlook these windows quirks and tells you exactly what it sees from the bad windows drive without being affected by source that is reporting errors. i think someone else here did the same thing with a mac box...btw, linux operating disk systems are free to download... you can even create a "live" linux boot dvd... i do that often, stick the linux dvd in my dvd drive and reboot to linux on the dvd while the bad windows drive is connected and take a quick look at file recovery possibilities. by using a linux system i have found files that a windows recovery program would not recognize. chkdsk is my last resort because chkdsk makes changes to disk data. so, i would say to arrange your damaged drive to copy off all the good data and then apply the chkdsk process to whats left.
 

JLSmooty

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Dec 27, 2015
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thanx the chkdsk /i /f did the trick for me i was in panic mode now i have triple backup :)
 
Dec 31, 2015
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Dec 31, 2015
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Hi John Reyn!
Good, wonderful, fantastic! You solved my problem (better: the external HDD problem). I used CHKDSK as you recommended and my HDD is now OK! Beatiful! People like you need to be recognized. Have a nice 2016 and long live and prosper! Bye!