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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : external drive problem
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palcal Guru  Joined: 12/10/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1993 |
I have a Samsung 1TB external drive (2.5" spinner) that I use for backup. Recently while transferring some files it just locked up. When I connect it to a PC even File Explorer won't run. The light on the drive just keeps flashing and nothing happens. I downloaded a file recovery app. from 'Stellar Data Recovery', I only got the trial version thinking I will pay if it seems to work. Well I got it to connect to the drive but it has been running 15 hours and only done 3%, at this rate it will take about 20 days. Seems a bit slow, does anyone have a better idea, I have files on it that are the only copy, yes I should back up to more than one place, a good lesson learnt. Edit... this is the second drive in a week that has failed. . Edited 2021-02-11 06:51 by palcal "It is better to be ignorant and ask a stupid question than to be plain Stupid and not ask at all" |
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Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 7937 |
It might be doing multiple reads to get stable data. If it is then it will take a lot longer than you expect. I see it's only going to rescue 1GB though so it does seem very slow. I usually try to read poorly drives using linux. That will often find stuff even if windows insists there's nothing there. Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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| palcal Guru Joined: 12/10/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1993 |
@Mixtel90 That's 1TB "It is better to be ignorant and ask a stupid question than to be plain Stupid and not ask at all" |
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| bigfix Senior Member  Joined: 20/02/2014 Location: AustriaPosts: 129 |
What helped me at least twice, was deep freezing the drive to -10 degrees Celsius I packed it in a sealed bag and had only the USB cable hanging out This is required to avoid condensation I placed the drive between two freezer packs while reading the data You should never recover directly on the broken drive - to much stress ! I used R-Studio (licensed) to create an image at another drive R-Studio R-Studio had many parameters to adjust recovery tries I limited it to just a few tries - more was useless Then I ran the recovery on the duplicated image and got most data back BTW most of my failing drives were from Seagate... Edited 2021-02-11 08:35 by bigfix |
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RetroJoe Senior Member Joined: 06/08/2020 Location: CanadaPosts: 290 |
Hmmm, interesting trick - never heard that one before for HDs, but freezing and heating electronic components to pinpoint intermittent failures is an old troubleshooting trick. What's the "Theory of Operation" behind this? Something to do with the physics of spinning platters, or with the drive electronics? Enjoy Every Sandwich / Joe P. |
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| Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 7937 |
The free version will only rescue 1GB. That's what I meant. :) Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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TassyJim Guru Joined: 07/08/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 6283 |
It could also be the controller, not the drive that's unhappy. For data recovery, my weapon of choice was GetDataBack https://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-products.htm Its a long time since I have had to use it. Jim Edited 2021-02-11 10:35 by TassyJim VK7JH MMedit |
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| Paul_L Guru Joined: 03/03/2016 Location: United StatesPosts: 769 |
I use a batch file to control multiple ROBOCOPY runs to copy all changed files to multiple USB drives several times a day. Every hard disk ever made will fail eventually. The other Paul in NY |
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| bigfix Senior Member Joined: 20/02/2014 Location: AustriaPosts: 129 |
Last year I tried a lot of old SCSI/ST506 drives in old DEC computers They were stored since 1995 Nearly all of them worked without errors Even 25 Year old DAT tapes did read without errors All the data from a huge box of disks and tapes fits on one microSD in a SCSI emulator But I would not expect this lifetime from any brandnew SSD, USB stick, SD Card, DVD Platter ... Harddisks seem to be a very reliable longterm storage media |
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Grogster Admin Group  Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9610 |
YES!  I had a similar problem to Paul's one recently with the HDD from a laptop that file explorer spent 90 mins on with 100% drive activity, and even after all that time, it did not show me any files or folders. Booted up Puppy Linux, and it could see the files instantly. A copy of Puppy Linux is a good thing to have on a spare flash drive in your tool-kit.  I never remembered about Paul_L's suggestion of robocopy before I had gone via the Linux path, so it would perhaps well be worth trying that at the Windoze command line first, to see if it can copy the files to somewhere else just as a test. Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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