Cixert Posted January 4 Posted January 4 (edited) I have an old backup on a 3Tb MBR drive. I used this drive from 2014-2019 with no problems and put it away in a drawer that year. It's a Seagate that some call the sudden death drive I used this drive again with no problems for 1 day last summer and now I'm using it again to test if new USB adapters work on MBR +2TiB hard drives. One problem I sometimes have with USB adapters, especially with this hard drive, is that it suddenly disconnects from Windows. The drives stop showing up in My Computer, as if it lost power for 1 second and then shows up again. Well, I thought I'll leave a few updated files on this hard drive. So on a FAT32 partition I deleted 4 folders and pasted a new folder, but before the operation was completed the hard drive became very slow and subsequently disconnected. OK, this has happened to me many times before. So I proceed to perform a CHKDSK, but surprise, it tells me that almost all the folders are unintelligible and it wants to delete them. Since it is an old backup I already have the files, I don't need to recover them one by one, but I would like to recover the complete copy of the files that I had in this 500 GiB partition. Since I make incremental copies I can't format and restore them from my current copy which is larger, I wouldn't know which files were in the old backup. My question is, would restoring a copy of the FAT table work or would it be more annoying or would nothing happen? Any other advice? I think that the hard drive became slow because I had a virus in Windows XP that I have already removed. But the hard drive keeps disconnecting suddenly too many times. On other hard drives using the same USB adapter this problem doesn't happen as often. I need some advice on how to restore all those folders that CHKDSK says are unintelligible. Thanks... Edited January 4 by Cixert
D.Draker Posted January 4 Posted January 4 It's the infamous Deathstar 2.0. They are doomed. I warned @Dave-H many times, he just plays with fire, I strongly advise, just forget about it, since it won't even allow you to make a comparison in which you could trust. Regarding the software, if you still want to do it, I trust WinHex, With it, you can open raw files, then see which file corresponds to which by checking their headers, it's long, it doesn't worth it. Recently, I encountered a disconnecting drive which I wanted to restore, it had the photos of my ex-girlfriend and me, Then I was busy for a month or so, I had to mend up myself. And you know what, I don't need those files anymore. xD. I found a new candidate for my girlfriend, bought a new, much better, photo-camera, and I bought a new 8TB HDD. 2
Multibooter Posted January 4 Posted January 4 (edited) 1) Maybe 500GB exceeds the maximum FAT32 partition size. The max.FAT32 partition size I use is 192GB (196,600.1MB), although I have partitioned OK a 320GB HDD to a 305227.6MB FAT32 partition, with WinXP ScanDisk working Ok. A 192GB FAT32 partition size has never given me any problems, also works OK under Win98. 2) Maybe the external power supply is going bad? (if your "USB adapter" is a USB docking station or an external HDD enclosure) 3) Maybe it's related to using a 3TB HDD under WinXP? 4) If there is an issue with the physical HDD, maybe Hard Disk Sentinel v6.20 can help: a) check the displayed Health of the HDD b) -> Disk -> Surface Test -> Test Type: Read + WRITE + read test (refresh data area) [may take 16+ hrs on a 3TB HDD] 5) Maybe you should create a clone of this HDD for fiddling around. Also: data recovery is EXTREMELY time-consuming 6) Maybe MiniTool Power Data Recovery v7.0 helps, it has a "Damaged Partition Recovery" button 7) Most likely your problem is not virus-related. I only use 1TB and 2TB HDDs myself, I have about 100+ of them. I stopped buying Seagate stuff in 2010, because of the risk of data loss. About 2 years ago I bought again several 2TB Seagate BarraCuda ST2000DM008 HDDs, they are Ok as backups, Seagate is now a brand of WD. Mucha suerte, hopefully the data on your HDD was not terminally damaged by having run CHKDSK on a 500GB FAT32 partition. Edited January 4 by Multibooter
Cixert Posted January 4 Author Posted January 4 (edited) 6 hours ago, D.Draker said: And you know what, I don't need those files anymore. xD. I found a new candidate for my girlfriend, bought a new, much better, photo-camera, and I bought a new 8TB HDD. My girlfriend says to delete everything and turn off the computer. 2 hours ago, Multibooter said: 1) Maybe 500GB exceeds the maximum FAT32 partition size. The max.FAT32 partition size I use is 192GB (196,600.1MB), although I have partitioned OK a 320GB HDD to a 305227.6MB FAT32 partition, with WinXP ScanDisk working Ok. A 192GB FAT32 partition size has never given me any problems, also works OK under Win98. 2) Maybe the external power supply is going bad? (if your "USB adapter" is a USB docking station or an external HDD enclosure) 3) Maybe it's related to using a 3TB HDD under WinXP? 4) If there is an issue with the physical HDD, maybe Hard Disk Sentinel v6.20 can help: a) check the displayed Health of the HDD b) -> Disk -> Surface Test -> Test Type: Read + WRITE + read test (refresh data area) [may take 16+ hrs on a 3TB HDD] 5) Maybe you should create a clone of this HDD for fiddling around. Also: data recovery is EXTREMELY time-consuming 6) Maybe MiniTool Power Data Recovery v7.0 helps, it has a "Damaged Partition Recovery" button 7) Most likely your problem is not virus-related. I only use 1TB and 2TB HDDs myself, I have about 100+ of them. I stopped buying Seagate stuff in 2010, because of the risk of data loss. About 2 years ago I bought again several 2TB Seagate BarraCuda ST2000DM008 HDDs, they are Ok as backups, Seagate is now a brand of WD. Mucha suerte, hopefully the data on your HDD was not terminally damaged by having run CHKDSK on a 500GB FAT32 partition. Thanks, I'll try Hard Disk Sentinel v6.20 I don't know it. I have been working with FAT32 partitions for a long time and never had a similar problem. Chkdsk should work fine. Here are the limits I have verified. FAT32 PARTITION LIMITS Cluster 4 KiB = 0.29 TiB / 300.99 GiB / 308213.76 MiB Cluster 8 KiB = 0.58 TiB / 600.99 GiB / 615413.76 MiB Cluster 16 KiB = 1.17 TiB / 1203.99 GiB / 1232885.76 MiB Cluster 32 KiB = 2.35 TiB / 2407.99 GiB / 2465781.76 MiB Cluster 64 KiB = 4.70 TiB / 4815.99 GiB / 4931573.76 MiB Cluster 128 KiB = 9.40 TiB / 9631,99 GiB / 9863157,76 MiB Cluster 256 KiB = 18.81 TiB / 19263,99 GiB / 19726325,76 MiB *Just I exceeds only 3.4 GiB the limit for cluster 16 KiB and problems arose. *Values from cluster 64/128/256 kib have been calculated by the previous amounts and I have not verified their correct operation. *You have to take into account the limits for the maximum partition size of 16 TiB with sectors of 4096 bytes and 2 TiB for 512 bytes sectors. (real calculation 15,9999999962747097015380859375 TiB & 1,9999999995343387126922607421875 TiB) exFAT PARTITION LIMITS Cluster 4 KiB = 1.00 TiB / 1025.00 GiB / 1049610.24 MiB Cluster 8 KiB = 2.00 TiB / 2049.00 GiB / 2098176.00 MiB Cluster 16 KiB = 4.00 TiB / 4097.00 GiB / 4195328.00 MiB Cluster 32 KiB = 8.00 TiB / 8193.00 GiB / 8390656.00 MiB Cluster 64 KiB = 16.00 TiB / 16385.00 GiB / 16779264.00 MiB Cluster 128 KiB = 32.00 TiB / 32769.00 GiB / 33556480.00 MiB Cluster 256 KiB = 64.00 TiB / 65537.00 GiB / 67110912.00 MiB ...and so on to cluster 32768 KiB (32 MiB) = 8192 TiB *Values from cluster 32/64/128/256 KiB have been calculated by the previous amounts and I have not verified their correct operation. Edited January 4 by Cixert
D.Draker Posted January 4 Posted January 4 13 hours ago, Multibooter said: If there is an issue with the physical HDD, maybe Hard Disk Sentinel v6.20 can help: a) check the displayed Health of the HDD b) -> Disk -> Surface Test -> Test Type: Read + WRITE + read test (refresh data area) [may take 16+ hrs on a 3TB HDD] I strongly advise against any type of tests on any allegedly dying HDD, especially if we know the disk is from the Deathstar 2.0 family. From what I understood, @Cixertalready run chkdsk. CHKDSK is basically a death sentence for those disks, last nail in the coffin. 2
D.Draker Posted January 4 Posted January 4 14 hours ago, Multibooter said: 2) Maybe the external power supply is going bad? (if your "USB adapter" is a USB docking station or an external HDD enclosure) Powering it down is also not advisable, since it can just never spin up again. In such cases I usually flip those poor dying b*stards in an attempt to spin them up. Some models do spin up when placed upside down, make it very gently, while they're powered on. 3
Multibooter Posted January 4 Posted January 4 (edited) 1 hour ago, D.Draker said: I strongly advise against any type of tests on any allegedly dying HDD, especially if we know the disk is from the Deathstar 2.0 family. From what I understood, @Cixertalready run chkdsk. CHKDSK is basically a death sentence for those disks, last nail in the coffin. Just last week I was fiddling around with a 1TB desktop Seagate Barracuda ST31000333AS, bad firmware SD35, of 2008. This was the initial Seagate model which would die out of the blue, for which Seagate provided a non-working firmware update. The HDD was used as a backup copy, with Health indicated by Hard Disk Sentinel at 84%. I first ran the Short Self-test, then the Extended Self-test [in the "Information" tab of Hard Disk Sentinel]. I then ran the Read test, then the "Read + WRITE + read" test. I then ran Beyond Compare to compare all files of the nearly full 1TB backup Seagate vs a good master HDD, all files and folders were identical. These intensive tests by Hard Disk Sentinel, maybe altogether 30 hours of continuous reading and writing, had not damaged this time-bomb Seagate, Health had stayed at 84%. Hard Disk Sentinel seems to handle poor HDDs very well. In any case the Health indication and the Short-Self-test (takes 2mins) put very little stress on a HDD and give an indication whether something is conspicuously wrong with the HDD and help decide whether it would be advisable to continue testing. I subsequently ran "Reinitialize disk surface" [a sophisticated low level format, reallocation of weak sectors etc] on the time-bomb Seagate because it had contained 1 reallocated bad sector. Health then declined to 83%. I subsequently re-partitioned the time-bomb Seagate, copied with Beyond Compare all stuff from the 1TB master HDD back to it. A binary compare with Beyond Compare of all files and folders on the master HDD vs backup HDD showed that they were identical. Health had stayed at 83%. Edited January 4 by Multibooter 1
Multibooter Posted January 4 Posted January 4 5 hours ago, Multibooter said: 2) Maybe the external power supply is going bad? (if your "USB adapter" is a USB docking station or an external HDD enclosure) Replacing the original power supply of a HDD docking station or external HDD enclosure with a substantially stronger one (more amps) has resolved for me flaky disk performance, e.g. when a docking station would work with HDD A but not with HDD B. Different HDDs have different power requirements. Hard Disk Sentinel also indicates the power requirements of a HDD for spinup and seek.
D.Draker Posted January 5 Posted January 5 16 hours ago, Multibooter said: Health had stayed at 83% I never understood those people who continued to use non-80s-made drivers when their health drops below 100%. 2
D.Draker Posted January 5 Posted January 5 16 hours ago, Multibooter said: Just last week I was fiddling around with a 1TB desktop Seagate Barracuda ST31000333AS, bad firmware SD35, of 2008. This was the initial Seagate model which would die out of the blue, for which Seagate provided a non-working firmware update From what we all see on numerous forums/posts, Seagate is/was always in the lead of all failures, be it their build quality, firmware, poor warranty or anything else. The question is, why even bother buying them? This information is all over the internet for many decades. 2
Cixert Posted January 8 Author Posted January 8 (edited) On 1/4/2025 at 10:03 PM, D.Draker said: Some models do spin up when placed upside down, make it very gently, while they're powered on. crack, crack, crack, crack, crack, crack, crack... It's dead. This is the noise that started to sound on the Seagate hard drive model ST3000DM0001. Now if I connect the hard drive I hear some beeps, as if the hard drive had an internal speaker. It is true that some models can be turned back on, but this is not the case. On 1/4/2025 at 11:29 PM, Multibooter said: Just last week I was fiddling around with a 1TB desktop Seagate Barracuda ST31000333AS, bad firmware SD35, of 2008. This was the initial Seagate model which would die out of the blue, for which Seagate provided a non-working firmware update. The HDD was used as a backup copy, with Health indicated by Hard Disk Sentinel at 84%. I first ran the Short Self-test, then the Extended Self-test [in the "Information" tab of Hard Disk Sentinel]. I then ran the Read test, then the "Read + WRITE + read" test. I then ran Beyond Compare to compare all files of the nearly full 1TB backup Seagate vs a good master HDD, all files and folders were identical. These intensive tests by Hard Disk Sentinel, maybe altogether 30 hours of continuous reading and writing, had not damaged this time-bomb Seagate, Health had stayed at 84%. Hard Disk Sentinel seems to handle poor HDDs very well. In any case the Health indication and the Short-Self-test (takes 2mins) put very little stress on a HDD and give an indication whether something is conspicuously wrong with the HDD and help decide whether it would be advisable to continue testing. I subsequently ran "Reinitialize disk surface" [a sophisticated low level format, reallocation of weak sectors etc] on the time-bomb Seagate because it had contained 1 reallocated bad sector. Health then declined to 83%. I subsequently re-partitioned the time-bomb Seagate, copied with Beyond Compare all stuff from the 1TB master HDD back to it. A binary compare with Beyond Compare of all files and folders on the master HDD vs backup HDD showed that they were identical. Health had stayed at 83%. Do you think I can update the firmware once it's dead? The disk is recognized by Windows, although it doesn't appear in disk manager. On 1/5/2025 at 12:02 AM, Multibooter said: Replacing the original power supply of a HDD docking station or external HDD enclosure with a substantially stronger one (more amps) has resolved for me flaky disk performance, e.g. when a docking station would work with HDD A but not with HDD B. Different HDDs have different power requirements. Hard Disk Sentinel also indicates the power requirements of a HDD for spinup and seek. The problem occurred after trying a new USB adapter, but the crack came with the previous adapter. As for the virus, it's clear that it has nothing to do with it. But by slowing down the file explorer for so long, after deleting and copying folders, it caused the power to fail during this time. I haven't been able to find out what the virus was, I can only say that when I clicked on copying more than 20 files it took 15 minutes to react before I could click on paste. There was no problem if I clicked on copying less than 20 files. On 1/5/2025 at 5:15 AM, D.Draker said: From what we all see on numerous forums/posts, Seagate is/was always in the lead of all failures, be it their build quality, firmware, poor warranty or anything else. The question is, why even bother buying them? This information is all over the internet for many decades. I gave up using Seagate hard drives years ago. I've never had a Maxtor hard drive fail me. I bought Seagate again because they bought Maxtor. I don't know what hard drive brand to buy, maybe Toshiba. I would never ever buy a Western Digital, all the ones I've tried have failed!!! I don't know how many hours of use it had, I was able to open Cristal Disk and see that there were no major errors, but I didn't find the number of hours tab at that time. I only saw that there were no major errors. I used this Seagate 3Tb frequently between 2014 and 2017 and kept it connected until 2019. But I always used it via USB 2.0 so its use should not have been strained. I find it hard to believe that if I had not made the security copy 2 days earlier he would have died. Since 2019 I have only used it once last June and now. Let us pray, as everyone knows, for his soul. Edited January 8 by Cixert
Karla Sleutel Posted January 9 Posted January 9 17 hours ago, Cixert said: I would never ever buy a Western Digital, all the ones I've tried have failed!!! My father had bought me a WD40EFRX in 2016, works till this day in my desktop. Though it's not quiet, but is a lot less noisier than Toshiba or Seagate. 1
Cixert Posted January 9 Author Posted January 9 2 minutes ago, Karla Sleutel said: My father had bought me a WD40EFRX in 2016, works till this day in my desktop. Though it's not quiet, but is a lot less noisier than Toshiba or Seagate. I'm surprised!!! Hard drives have not made any noise for many years. I only hear them on Western Digital.
Karla Sleutel Posted January 9 Posted January 9 11 hours ago, Cixert said: I'm surprised!!! Hard drives have not made any noise for many years. I only hear them on Western Digital. It's simple, EFRX are a series of server models, hence the producer doesn't care about the noise, but at least it's more reliable, it works fine even today - 24/7. 2
Karla Sleutel Posted January 9 Posted January 9 18 hours ago, Cixert said: Toshiba Modern models are very hot. slow and noisy, most of them use the infamous "shingled" tech. for the economy. Overall, a very budget solution. 1
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