Hard drive, needs scan on startup, slow to shut down?

Slam · 28 Nov 2017 at 07:08

Lately one hard drive (not the os drive) stays 100% active for a long time, I thought this may be due to a windows update causing problems. Perhaps with Google photos.
Yesterday shut down took ages and then the pc didn't boot.

I see that the drive wasn't detected in bios but then just turning it off and on again did the trick.

How do I diagnose this further?

Skiddley · 29 Nov 2017 at 14:13

Back that puppy up.

Slam · 30 Nov 2017 at 20:30

Thanks. I've bought a dual drive sata dock with built in copying function.

GWANGY · 30 Nov 2017 at 23:46

Sata cable loose or bad, seat all cables again to be sure.

Slam · 2 Dec 2017 at 11:33

decided to clone drive, seems to have fixed the issue although maybe the act of inserting the cables into the new drive sorted it rather than the new unit itself. new problem though, the original drive was 2TB the new one is 3TB and the disk manager only let me extend the partition size to the size of the original unit so I have 746.5 GB of unallocated space that I can't do anything with.

demonix · 2 Dec 2017 at 14:29

Was the original set up as MBR or GPT?

If it was the former, then there is nothing you can do since the partition limit on drives that use MBR have a maximum partition size of 2TB, but you might be able to convert the drive to GPT although that requires a PC that has a UEFI BIOS and also seems to require wiping the drive to be converted, so I hope that you haven't disposed of the original drive since it's more then likely that you'll have to copy the data over once you've done the conversion (but if the computer in question doesn't have a UEFI BIOS, then you probably won't be able to make use of the remaining space on the new drive).

Slam · 2 Dec 2017 at 16:37

MBR - looks like all my drives are setup as MBR.

so I need to move data off and then re-format as GPT?

bremen1874 · 2 Dec 2017 at 16:58

You can convert to GPT without loosing any data (but make sure you have backup anyway).

Try Windows Disk Management. If the option is greyed out use DiskPart at the command-line.

A quick Google will provide detailed instructions.

Slam · 2 Dec 2017 at 18:16

Thanks for the tip, option was greyed out in Windows Disk Management. Read about DiskPart but wasn't sure if I would lose data with the existing partition setup.
However did the conversion easily using AOMEI Partition Assistant.

Slam · 25 Apr 2018 at 09:55

Windows 10 is frequently taking a long time to shut down, there's no message stating what it's doing (ie it doesn't say its waiting for a program to shut down). Sometimes it takes a while to start up, yesterday I noticed it said it was scanning and repairing the drive. In use the drive can be read normally although sometimes it takes a long while to write files from my GoPro to it.

seagate_surfer · 25 Apr 2018 at 15:42

demonix said:
Was the original set up as MBR or GPT?

If it was the former, then there is nothing you can do since the partition limit on drives that use MBR have a maximum partition size of 2TB, but you might be able to convert the drive to GPT although that requires a PC that has a UEFI BIOS and also seems to require wiping the drive to be converted, so I hope that you haven't disposed of the original drive since it's more then likely that you'll have to copy the data over once you've done the conversion (but if the computer in question doesn't have a UEFI BIOS, then you probably won't be able to make use of the remaining space on the new drive).

Slam said:
MBR - looks like all my drives are setup as MBR.

so I need to move data off and then re-format as GPT?

bremen1874 said:
You can convert to GPT without loosing any data (but make sure you have backup anyway).

Try Windows Disk Management. If the option is greyed out use DiskPart at the command-line.

A quick Google will provide detailed instructions.

Slam said:
Thanks for the tip, option was greyed out in Windows Disk Management. Read about DiskPart but wasn't sure if I would lose data with the existing partition setup.
However did the conversion easily using AOMEI Partition Assistant.

If you're current on Windows updates, this can actually be done with a built-in Windows command-line tool now that shouldn't require you to format/erase any data, it was added in Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, and it's called MBR2GPT. Hyperlink has the instructions. Personal experience tip: Make sure to run command line as administrator. Also when making system changes, it's still a good idea to back everything up anyways. Backups are always your friend. Always.

Slam said:
Windows 10 is frequently taking a long time to shut down, there's no message stating what it's doing (ie it doesn't say its waiting for a program to shut down). Sometimes it takes a while to start up, yesterday I noticed it said it was scanning and repairing the drive. In use the drive can be read normally although sometimes it takes a long while to write files from my GoPro to it.

Might be time to scan your drive with the manufacturer diagnostic tool, most drive manufacturers have a free one somewhere on their website. If it's one of ours, that would be SeaTools with both bootable & Windows versions. If it's not one of ours, you can still scan the drive with our utility. Just keep in mind that as part of an RMA process, whichever manufacturer it came from will likely require you to run diagnostics with their own software as part of their procedure.

Slam · 25 Apr 2018 at 21:39

Thanks for the advice. I've changed the sata cable (just a hunch) and scanned using the manufacturer program and it passed okay. Will see how the computer behaves for a few days.