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HagbardCeline
Student-Teacher-Student-Teacher



Registered: 05/10/03
Posts: 10,028
Loc: Overjoyed, at the bottom ...
Last seen: 20 days, 16 hours
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Hard drive I was using in a docking station keeps telling me to reformat
#25929815 - 04/12/19 12:25 AM (5 years, 1 month ago) |
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So I had a 2.5" drive from an old laptop that I had been using as an external in a docking station that has begun insisting I reformat to use the drive. Using Win 10 file explorer, all 3 of the partitions are visible but inaccessible. Worryingly, it shows the first partition as NFTS and the other two as RAW.
There is nothing critical on this drive, but I would like to recover it if possible. I haven't done anything but use SeaTools to attempt non-invasive diagnostics to see what the situation is. All tests, including SMART tests, pass with flying colors. So rather than an actual drive failure, it appears likely that some data corruption (perhaps the MBR?) is preventing normal operation. With all the tests running GREEN, presumbably if I were to reformat the drive it would work fine.
Now, when I was last using this drive/docking station I had noticed that file transfers (especially large ones) would fail. When DLing torrents, everything would blaze along at first before I noticed that data would completely stop writing to the drive and trying to access it through File Explorer or the like would often cause the complete disconnection of the drive just as if I had unplugged it. But it would quickly reconnect and work fine until it happened again. It would sometimes run fine for weeks, followed by days of barely any uptime. At the time I chalked it up to the dock failing as I had tried another drive and it did the same thing.
After using that 2nd drive/same docking station on another computer though, I had ZERO issues, so I started doing research and found that many people have had basically the same issues that are ultimately traced to the USB ports on the computer. It's a Dell Inspiron 7559 with 3x USB 3.0 and the consensus seems to be that for whatever reason this computer can have intermittent periods where the the data stops flowing and the connection becomes unstable. I've read 10 or so individual accounts and not a single one of them was resolved. This USB issue appears to fairly common across many different makes and models of laptops, but in most of the others it is resolved through some power management setting (I think it was something to do with the computer shutting the ports off when it hasn't detected activity for a short period). But none of the fixes that work for the others are the issue here and apparently Dell won't address it.
So anyway I had similar issue some years ago on a failed Ubuntu install where it overwrote my MBR and rendered the drive unusable, but I was able to finally restore that drive fully after the week or so it took me to learn how to fix it. I put myself through hell and barely slept through that entire ordeal though as that drive actually did have critical info on it.
Can anyone help guide me in the right direction?
-------------------- I keep it real because I think it is important that a highly esteemed individual such as myself keep it real lest they experience the dreaded spontaneous non-existance of no longer keeping it real. - Hagbard Celine
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koraks
Registered: 06/02/03
Posts: 26,729
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Re: Hard drive I was using in a docking station keeps telling me to reformat [Re: HagbardCeline] 1
#25929945 - 04/12/19 05:40 AM (5 years, 1 month ago) |
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1. Hook up the drive to an internal SATA port to prevent USB issues from causing troubles. 2. Try fixing the MBR from command line (win10 if you like) 3. Boot your machine using a Linux live disk/stick and try to access the HDD from Linux; Linux is often more flexible in accessing seemingly corrupted partitions than Windows.
Keep in mind that even a lack of SMART errors does not mean the drive is 100% OK; there may still be hardware issues with it that evade SMART detection.
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HagbardCeline
Student-Teacher-Student-Teacher



Registered: 05/10/03
Posts: 10,028
Loc: Overjoyed, at the bottom ...
Last seen: 20 days, 16 hours
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Re: Hard drive I was using in a docking station keeps telling me to reformat [Re: koraks]
#25930243 - 04/12/19 09:22 AM (5 years, 1 month ago) |
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I had briefly considered the internal SATA port when I started reading about the issues but was slow playing that because it will require even more work to get my old desktop running again. But you are right, I can't deny the correctness of being able to completely eliminate any entire class of issues by this route.
But shouldn't I try to use the Linux live disc (or HIRAM's Boot CD) and some sort of data recovery tool before attempting to fix the MBR?
That's is a good point about the SMART errors too, but since the other disc is working flawlessly (just because its hooked up to a different laptop) and it had been behaving just like this one, I'll hope my optimism is not misplaced for now.
-------------------- I keep it real because I think it is important that a highly esteemed individual such as myself keep it real lest they experience the dreaded spontaneous non-existance of no longer keeping it real. - Hagbard Celine
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koraks
Registered: 06/02/03
Posts: 26,729
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Re: Hard drive I was using in a docking station keeps telling me to reformat [Re: HagbardCeline]
#25930550 - 04/12/19 12:52 PM (5 years, 1 month ago) |
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Whether you try the fixMBR thing or the Tux thing first doesn't really matter; whichever you prefer.
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stubb
Dahg Rastubfari


Registered: 03/23/19
Posts: 1,382
Loc: Memory
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Re: Hard drive I was using in a docking station keeps telling me to reformat [Re: HagbardCeline] 1
#25930615 - 04/12/19 01:32 PM (5 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
HagbardCeline said: But shouldn't I try to use the Linux live disc (or HIRAM's Boot CD) and some sort of data recovery tool before attempting to fix the MBR?
Depends how vital the data is and how much time you want to spend attempting recovery, but yes, I recommend imaging the whole disk using ddrescue first thing. This will also give you some indication whether there's a hardware issue.
You can make a copy of the image, mount the copy, and attempt to repair the filesystem(s) contained in the image non-destructively. You'll also have much better luck repairing a filesystem on an image than a failed HDD, if such be the case.
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