External Hard Drive Problem

Misfit

Misfit

Lawful neutral
I have a ginormous external hard drive that I’ve had for a few years. Yesterday I went to open it and got this error “E:\ is not accessible, Data error (cyclic redundancy check)”. It’s weird because usually my drive is H:\ and also now there isn’t that bar underneath the drive saying how much room is left in it. I’m running windows 8.1. Anybody able to help me, my whole life is on this thing.

:dead:
 
L

LostNFound

Member
Misfit said:
I have a ginormous external hard drive that I’ve had for a few years. Yesterday I went to open it and got this error “E:\ is not accessible, Data error (cyclic redundancy check)”. It’s weird because usually my drive is H:\ and also now there isn’t that bar underneath the drive saying how much room is left in it. I’m running windows 8.1. Anybody able to help me, my whole life is on this thing.

:dead:
Click to expand...


If this is more geek than you can handle find a geeky friend : http://www.wikihow.com/Fix-a-Cyclic-Redundancy-Check-Error

But Id give this a go ...
 
GURPS

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
misfit .... for the future, does this drive run all the time, or do you only plug it in when you need to move data - ie retrieval or back up

I have a WD Green 2 Tb drive that has accumulated 44,000+ hours [about 5 yrs of run time] - there are several hard drives in the group on has 52,000 hours ...
I migrated all the data from that unit to a new 5 Tb drive .....


for the present, try another computer, maybe boot from a 'Live' Linux CD / DVD .... I have had good luck with Linux mounting hard drives for data recovery, that windows could not even see the FAT for .... I then streamed the data off of the drive to another repository
 
Ken King

Ken King

A little rusty but not crusty
PREMO Member
GURPS said:
misfit .... for the future, does this drive run all the time, or do you only plug it in when you need to move data - ie retrieval or back up

I have a WD Green 2 Tb drive that has accumulated 44,000+ hours [about 5 yrs of run time] - there are several hard drives in the group on has 52,000 hours ...
I migrated all the data from that unit to a new 5 Tb drive .....


for the present, try another computer, maybe boot from a 'Live' Linux CD / DVD .... I have had good luck with Linux mounting hard drives for data recovery, that windows could not even see the FAT for .... I then streamed the data off of the drive to another repository
Click to expand...

If that doesn't work I have hammers and shovels you can borrow. :yay:
 
Misfit

Misfit

Lawful neutral
GURPS said:
misfit .... for the future, does this drive run all the time, or do you only plug it in when you need to move data - ie retrieval or back up

I have a WD Green 2 Tb drive that has accumulated 44,000+ hours [about 5 yrs of run time] - there are several hard drives in the group on has 52,000 hours ...
I migrated all the data from that unit to a new 5 Tb drive .....


for the present, try another computer, maybe boot from a 'Live' Linux CD / DVD .... I have had good luck with Linux mounting hard drives for data recovery, that windows could not even see the FAT for .... I then streamed the data off of the drive to another repository
Click to expand...

I use it on our desk top and it’s only running if I'm specifically downloading something or adding media to a thumb drive to watch something on the T.V.

I plugged it into other computers but I got the same result. I'll give the 'Live' Linux a try next. I wasn't having any success until I went to command prompt and entered chkdsk E: /r “Locates bad sectors and recovers readable information". It was the only thing that hasn't given me an error but it’s only on 160 of 239536.

:ohwell:


Ken King said:
If that doesn't work I have hammers and shovels you can borrow. :yay:
Click to expand...

With everthing I have on this stupid thing will you bash me in my head and bury me with it?
 
GWguy

GWguy

*
Misfit said:
I wasn't having any success until I went to command prompt and entered chkdsk E: /r “Locates bad sectors and recovers readable information". It was the only thing that hasn't given me an error but it’s only on 160 of 239536.

:ohwell:

With everthing I have on this stupid thing will you bash me in my head and bury me with it?
Click to expand...

CHKDSK was going to be my suggestion. It has gotten me out of trouble more often than you'd think. It will take a long time if it's a large drive with lots of bad sectors.

Take this as a HUGE wakeup call. If your data was that important, back it up.
 
Misfit

Misfit

Lawful neutral
GWguy said:
Take this as a HUGE wakeup call. If your data was that important, back it up.
Click to expand...

What would you suggest? A bigger external hard drive, copy everything over to it, disconnecting it and storing it someplace safe?
 
merc669

merc669

New Member
Thats what I do. I have a 1TB External Drive and I back up the System Drive with all my wife's digital pictures then once backed up, I verify the data as an option within the backup program and then release the USB Port and shut it down and either put in closet or if turned off just leave in spot on the cabinet until I need to backup again. Works for me so far.
 
Misfit

Misfit

Lawful neutral
merc669 said:
Thats what I do. I have a 1TB External Drive and I back up the System Drive with all my wife's digital pictures then once backed up, I verify the data as an option within the backup program and then release the USB Port and shut it down and either put in closet or if turned off just leave in spot on the cabinet until I need to backup again. Works for me so far.
Click to expand...

Thanks'...I just ordered a 5tb Seagate. If the one I'm trying to resurrect works again that’s exactly what I'll do.

:yay:
 
GWguy

GWguy

*
Misfit said:
What would you suggest? A bigger external hard drive, copy everything over to it, disconnecting it and storing it someplace safe?
Click to expand...

Important things that never change can be copied to CD/DVD. Far more secure than a memory stick or HDD. Things like movies and music, while a pain, can be re-created. Anything unique, put on a DVD.

Besides that, dual backups is never a bad idea if the data is that important. Backup to one device that is your 'working' backup, then back THAT up to another drive which is only connected when actually doing the backups. As noted above, make sure you perform a clean USB dismount before removing the USB wire.

I can recover my data going back 20 years from one source or another.
 
Ken King

Ken King

A little rusty but not crusty
PREMO Member
Misfit said:
With everthing I have on this stupid thing will you bash me in my head and bury me with it?
Click to expand...
Absofrickinglutely, come on out this way. Hell, right over the hill behind my property there is already a graveyard. :buddies:
 
GURPS

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
Misfit said:
What would you suggest? A bigger external hard drive, copy everything over to it, disconnecting it and storing it someplace safe?
Click to expand...



[already covered by everyone else]


:buddies:


I just picked up a

TRS-80 4P
line printer [radio shack]
2 external floppy drives
15 meg hard desk


2 Radio Shack Deskmate devices

scads of floppies



IBM PC

Toshiba 425 Laptop
 
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Misfit

Misfit

Lawful neutral
GURPS said:
my point about how you use the device, a hard drive will generally last longer at rest, not being used, I have floppies with my Commodore 128 from the 80's that still work fine.


maybe a 2 tiered system ..... a bare 5 Tb hard disk is about $ 200 from Amazon, and external case can be had for 20 - 100 bucks depending on the options required

firewire, usb 3 e-sata


a hard drive you only power up to 'backup'
another - maybe smaller device for 'commonly used files' you don't want cluttering up your main computer hard drive
Click to expand...

That’s exactly what I’m going to do. The 5tb I ordered is getting filled with back up stuff and I’ll use my 1 or 3 tb for readily accessible stuff. I’ll be keeping them unplugged/without power until I need to use them from now on.
 
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