HDD Failure

Skiddley

Skiddley

Skiddley

Soldato
Joined
1 Aug 2003
Posts
3,797
Location
Cheshire
Guys, I have a mechanical HDD (WD Red - 4TB). Full of data.

SMART stats look ok, and it is readable, but believe the MFT is corrupt. Windows cannot mount it. Shows up as RAW in the Storage Manager tool.

Best options to recover data?

Currently running photorec - 600 hours remaining...
 
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Throw this drive away.
Buy a new drive.
Restore your backup to the new drive.
Buy a spare drive so it's less painful next time.
 
OK - an update on this. Might be helpful for someone.

4TB disk(WD Red) was being used for storing of some of my DVD\BR rips (about 500). Disk was 99% full. Windows was showing it inaccessible in a RAW format. No backup.

I tried TestDisk, and it reported both the primary, and Mirror MFT were corrupt. Whilst I could use PhotoRec to scan for file sigs which did enable me to recover DVD rips in a working form (albeit with no file names). Larger HD MKVs (20gig+ each) would only be partially recovered, and playback was not right.

I ran a comprehensive scan using GetDataBack Simple (the replacement to GetDataBack NTFS), which using the same file signature approach, reconstructed the original directory structure. You can recover the files using this tool (if you have a license - although it's possible to recover without if you have half a brain).

Looks like I'll get everything back. File names and all.

So, 2 questions;
- I just ordered some new drives. Plan was to have a primary\sec backup, and not RAID. I need some software that can backup a fileset from drive a to b (only the diff), on a schedule. This should be simple enough - and I presume there is some free software to do this?

- As the issue was a corrupted MFT, SMART data looks ok, and the drive appears to be mechanically sound, would you keep the disk? If it's also part of a resilient pair, does this sound plausible? Or should it be binned? It's about 2yrs old.
 
Skiddley said:
I need some software that can backup a fileset from drive a to b (only the diff), on a schedule. This should be simple enough - and I presume there is some free software to do this?
Click to expand...

Robocopy in a scheduled batch file will do this e.g.

Code: 
robocopy "F:\source" "H:\backup" /MIR /R:2

This will mirror the source to the destination (I.e. including deleting anything from the destination that no longer exists, and will only copy files that have changed)

Skiddley said:
As the issue was a corrupted MFT, SMART data looks ok, and the drive appears to be mechanically sound, would you keep the disk? If it's also part of a resilient pair, does this sound plausible? Or should it be binned? It's about 2yrs old.
Click to expand...

Download WD's Data Lifeguard Diagnostics and run the tests on that, they should pick up anything that might be a concern.
 
Cheers - will take a look at Robo.

Yes - I ran the WD diags when it first went down. Looks absolutely fine. Just in two minds about using it, seems a shame to bin what might be an ok drive.
 
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Think that bit is sorted now thankfully. Other people had recommended Recurva.

The only thing with Robocopy - is I want the backup to run as a service and start automatically.
 
Use Task Scheduler..

Or you can write the script in Notepad, then save it as "file backup.bat" (not .bat.txt !), then double click that bat file to run the script.

I keep my backup scripts on my Desktop, so I can run them when I want in the background.
 
Hey Skiddley.

Looks like this was quite the roller coaster. Good job on recovering your data. The corrupted file table or file system does not necessarily mean that the drive is having issues. The guys here have given you good suggestions. The fact that nothing unusual pops-up when you run the Quick and Extended tests with DLG would mean that the HDD should be fine.

However, regardless of that, you should always keep a backup of your most important information, no matter how reliable a drive might be.

I hope everything's OK from now on. Let us know if anything else comes up.

Cheers!
Boogieman_WD
 
Thanks all. I like the script idea, for scheduled, and ad-hoc backups. I'll get on the case.

I'll re-do the DLG tests after the restoration is finished (waiting for more WD Reds to be delivered tomorrow!!) before placing it back in use.

Lesson learnt!!
 
What is good back up software don't mind paying few quid a month for just something that auto back ups i got external drive for on site back up but looking for off site
 
If you want a hand writing the script.

Tell us what the source folder is and the destination folder. (and if there any subfolders or filetypes that you want to be ignored during the backup)

-You shouldn't use it on the root of a drive.

ie, you can't backup C:\ to E:\, but you can do from C:\folder\ to E:\folder
 
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