Is my hard drive dead?

RetiredGreyFox · 23 Jul 2016 at 19:46

A few hours ago I was watching a film that streams off my 3TB hard drive and it started to stop/start so I decided to reboot, On reboot my windows startup froze and after a lot of diagnosing my SSD wouldn't boot in because the 3TB was plugged in.

The drive can be seen in BIOS, the Intel Storage can see it and Disk Management can see it and a right click did take me to format etc.

It can't be seen in Windows Explorer or Computer.

Any ideas?
I've even put it in the fridge.

FloppyPoppy · 24 Jul 2016 at 07:56

SexyGreyFox [Deceased];29819779 said:
A few hours ago I was watching a film that streams off my 3TB hard drive and it started to stop/start so I decided to reboot, On reboot my windows startup froze and after a lot of diagnosing my SSD wouldn't boot in because the 3TB was plugged in.

The drive can be seen in BIOS, the Intel Storage can see it and Disk Management can see it and a right click did take me to format etc.

It can't be seen in Windows Explorer or Computer.

Any ideas?
I've even put it in the fridge.

Why would you have put it in the fridge

? i would have started by trying it in another pc first

see how it works in something else.

RetiredGreyFox · 24 Jul 2016 at 12:45

harry5522 said:
Why would you have put it in the fridge ? i would have started by trying it in another pc first see how it works in something else.

Tried it in another PC first.
The fridge was on a Google search but it only stayed in for 2 minutes.

I've tried a few free programmes and one called DMDE shows all the files on the drive but I can't get any off

You wouldn't believe how much stuff I've got on there and I recently bought a 3TB to backup to but only so much was done.

Sometimes Explorer does see it now but it won't open up.

Any ideas appreciated.

FloppyPoppy · 24 Jul 2016 at 15:27

Erm i would get a copy of something like HD Sentinel that can read the S.M.A.R.T data from the drive and should give you a great indication of health.

Other than this im sorry i have no other ideas for you. It's always a tragic loss when a HDD starts to give way. May be time to look into a Raid 1 setup so you would not need to concern yourself with manually backing up.

KIA · 24 Jul 2016 at 18:23

GetDataBack for NTFS

https://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm

RetiredGreyFox · 24 Jul 2016 at 19:50

KIA said:
GetDataBack for NTFS

https://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm

Didn't work, neither did Ontrack Easy Recovery

swain90 · 25 Jul 2016 at 11:11

Maybe worth trying a live environment such as Ubuntu from a memory stick.

I've used that a couple of times to get data off failing disks. If it really is dead then you might be a bit stuck, but it's worth a try!?

RetiredGreyFox · 25 Jul 2016 at 18:51

I'll try that.

I even tried Seagate's own recovery software and it said no chance (or words to that effect).

MrKnifey · 13 Aug 2016 at 09:12

Any luck in the end as im going through similar?

lude1962 · 13 Aug 2016 at 10:18

the fridge trick is for drives that have a sticky mechanism ie the arm isnt moving freely, drive keeps clicking etc
but you put it in a plastic bag to keep moisture out
and it actually works in some cases
used it for laptop drives , connect up, boot and run ghost with ignore bad sectors to take an image

EDIT looks like macrium reflect can take an image
Force Macrium Reflect to ignore bad sectors

If you are unable to successfully reallocate file system clusters by running chkdsk then you can force Macrium Reflect to continue on Error 23.

Take the 'Other tasks' > 'Edit defaults' > 'Advanced' option and select 'Ignore bad sectors', click 'OK'. Images will now complete:

Unless the drive controller is totally knackered I'd take an image, the more you fiddle with the drive the less you are likely to recover

MrKnifey · 13 Aug 2016 at 10:35

Ive managed to get to most of my files on my hard drive, but typically the couple of most important files are coming up blank in the folder they are meant to be in! :/

RetiredGreyFox · 14 Aug 2016 at 02:33

MrKnifey said:
Any luck in the end as im going through similar?

No, I even took it to a data recovery place who couldn't do it.

Rroff · 14 Aug 2016 at 03:00

lude1962 said:
the fridge trick is for drives that have a sticky mechanism ie the arm isnt moving freely, drive keeps clicking etc
but you put it in a plastic bag to keep moisture out
and it actually works in some cases
used it for laptop drives , connect up, boot and run ghost with ignore bad sectors to take an image

Should only ever be done as a last resort and with a system prepared to recover any data off it ready to go. Usually it is a short term fix (like minutes) with a high chance of rendering the drive permanently dead in the long run.