Seagate External USB 4TB HDD Turns RAW

[ZooBooBooZoo]

Hi all.

I've recently bought a new SSD and installed a Windows 7 Ultimate on it. I then formatted my internal 500GB HDD where the former Windows used to live.
For some reasons after I re-installed Windows my Seagate External USB 4TB HDD turned RAW.

Symptoms:
1) In windows Disk Management the drive's file system is "RAW".
2) Shows in windows explorer with a letter "H:".
3) Not accessible / "Do you want to format the drive?" warnings appear when trying to access the drive.
4) Same things happen when the drive is connected to my laptop so it's the not the computer, it's the disk that's malfunctioning.

Diagnostics test I ran:

TestDisk:
It actually lists the drive twice. both as "dev/sdc" and as "Drive H:".
I don't really know with which to go or whether I should choose the recommended "none" partition type or "intel" type(since I'm pretty sure it was NTFS).
here's the screen of the list and the analayze->deep search I did for the "dev/sdc".



Seagate Seatools:
Failed both the short self drive test and the long generic.

both of them failed/found an error in the 1st minutes, even seconds of the tests so I'm guessing the the boot sector is wrong but I'm not sure about it, nor am I sure about what's the best way to fix it.

Thanks in advance for any help,
ZBBZ.

[fzabkar]

Did you perhaps remove the drive from the enclosure, attach it to your motherboard's SATA port, and then reinstall it in the enclosure?

TestDisk is telling you that the "FAT 16" partition ends at Cylinder/Head/Sector = 383202/26/14.

If the sector size were 512 bytes, then the required capacity would be approximately ...

383202 x 255 x 63 x 512 bytes = 3.15TB

Alternatively, if the sector size were 4096 bytes, then the required capacity would be approximately ...

383202 x 255 x 63 x 512 x 8 bytes = 25.2TB

Seagate's external 3TB+ drives are configured with 4KB sector sizes. The above scenario is what happens when you swap drives between dissimilar enclosures or partition them inside your computer.

[ZooBooBooZoo]

I didn't do anything of the sort...
I just installed windows on the SSD. perhaps testdisk is showing that because I ran the test on the "dev/sdc" and not on H: ?

[fzabkar]

ISTM that some tool which was unaware of the enclosure's actual sector size repartitioned the drive in the assumption that the sector size was 512 bytes. That's probably why TestDisk thinks that the partition is 8 times larger than it should be.

If it were my drive, I would use DMDE (http://dmde.com) to locate the original partition structure, if it still exists. Then I would confirm that the files are still intact, after which I would reinstate the original partition table.

[ZooBooBooZoo]

Thanks for the help fzabkar.

Before I use dmde:
When I use testdisk and choose drive H: -> choose the suggested "none" filesystem type -> testdisk sugggests "advanced" -> and then it suggests "boot" for boot sector recovery.

Should I do it?

[fzabkar]

I wouldn't use TestDisk to write on the drive. DMDE will give us a much clearer picture of the state of the file system(s).

[ZooBooBooZoo]

OK.

Can you guide me a lil' on what do do with DMDE ?
It's not that I want to silver-spooned it's just that I'd hate doing something reckless and irreversible because of my lack of understanding.

Does it matter if I choose it as logical drive or physical drive?
and how should I go about "locate the original partition structure, if it still exists. Then I would confirm that the files are still intact, after which I would reinstate the original partition table." ?

[fzabkar]

Launch DMDE. Make sure the "Show Partitions" box is checked. DMDE will then attempt to find all the partitions, both present and past. Show us what you see in the Partitions window.

Now close the Partitions window and show us sector 0. You should see a partition table with all your current partitions.

Select Mode -> Hexadecimal and show us LBA 0 in hex mode.

[ZooBooBooZoo]

How's that?





The rest of LBA0 is zeroed out...

thanks fzabkar

[fzabkar]

The drive has a single NTFS 4TB MBR partition with a sector size of 4096 bytes. That appears to be perfectly OK. I don't know where TestDisk is getting its information, but in any case it appears bogus.

If you double-click the Primary (A) partition, do you see your file system?

[ZooBooBooZoo]

as far as I can tell yes, here's the screen.
I laso added an example error that occurs when I'm trying to access the files in MDME or run NTFS search:



If it looks OK than what could possibly be the problem? 'cause the disk is still listed as RAW and is still inaccessible through windows where it prompts for formatting the drive...

[fzabkar]

If you can see your file/folder structure, then try to recover your most important files. You could also try mounting the damaged file system from a Ubuntu Live CD.

ISTM that the partition table and boot sector are OK. AFAICT the file system corruption does not lend itself to a simple manual repair. The damage also appears to be compounded by bad sectors.

Could we see a SMART report, eg with CrystalDiskInfo or HD Sentinel?

[ZooBooBooZoo]

I can see the files listed in MDME like this:


But I can't access them through the $root/metadata/ntfs search etc.
Should I recover or reconstruct the file system with MDME ?

Smart report, crystaldiskinfo:


I'll post an update on how it went with Ubuntu later.

[ZooBooBooZoo]

No sucess with ubuntu
[Sorry for the DP but I can't edit my previous post]

[ZooBooBooZoo]

[Posted again by mistake, admins pls delete]

[fzabkar]

CrystalDiskInfo is indicating that your drive has significant media/head problems. Your best DIY chance would be to clone your drive with a tool such as ddrescue that understands how to work with bad media, and then use data recovery software on the clone.

You would improve your chances immensely if you could disable retries and reallocation as explained in the following thread, but you would need to remove the drive from its enclosure and connect to its serial diagnostic port.

http://malthus.zapto.org/viewtopic.php?f=83&t=557

As for DMDE, if you can't see your files by double-clicking $Root, then that would suggest that the MFT is broken early on. The MFT begins at cluster #786432, and the MFTMirror is located at cluster #2. You could view and compare these clusters.

[hhddrec]

Hi ZooBooBooZoo

fzabkar is on true; you need clone your drive as soon as posible because you have media/head problems, and maybe your HDD go worst.

see pic

Attachments

[ZooBooBooZoo]

Hey guys, I wasn't near my HD in A WHILE but now I am and I want to continue with the fixing operation.

Is DDRescue the best option for cloning? also: do I have the clone the whole 4TB or can I clone just a part of it? say the images folder. I don't have enough space to clone the 4TB so cloning the full 4TB might become a problem. also: I don't need everything on the drive, mostly a few dozens or hundreds of pictures.

You would improve your chances immensely if you could disable retries and reallocation as explained in the following thread, but you would need to remove the drive from its enclosure and connect to its serial diagnostic port.

http://malthus.zapto.org/viewtopic.php?f=83&t=557

How would I go about it? (the link is dead...)

[hhddrec]

domain change. try:
http://www.alexsoft.org/viewtopic.php?f=83&t=557