Hi guys, need your pro help. My HDD shows up as uninitialized. I ran TestDisk and I think it said Invalid FAT boot sector.

What is the best approach to copy the entire image and transfer it to another HDD, or just view all the contents and copy them to another drive? How would I go about doing this and with which software? Thanks.

Is this related to your previous 2TB LaCie thread?

What happened just before the problem was first seen i.e. what happened between the last time the drive was recognised normally, and when the drive was first reported by Windows as "uninitialised"?

Is this an external or internal drive?

Is it spinning-up, and then staying spinning, without making any clicking sounds?

Regarding your questions - there are many previous threads on the forum about cloning disks, and some of the different software utilities which can be used, if you are prepared to accept the risks which are involved (this DIY process can make things worse in some cases, and some people have made mistakes which caused them to lose data permanently). You'll find those threads when you search the forum (see the button in the top right corner of the page)

Whoops, I should've given more information, too tired today, thanks for replying Vulcan.

It is indeed related to the LaCie thread. I've asked several other people who have the same HDD model and size to shake their drives and they've told me it produces the exact same sound. So I powered my drives on, they're fine, no strange sounds whatsoever, everything sounds like it always has, runs perfectly. However, the external drive isn't being shown in Windows. In Disk Management it's just showing up as uninitialized. Could this be because I've changed the order of the two HDD's which were in the enclosure? I've forgotten the order they were originally placed in. I've tried swapping them again but no luck.

OK, now you've confirmed this is related to your previous 2TB LaCie thread ...

dropped-2tb-hdd-damaged-t25044.html

... I won't comment further. I wouldn't have replied at all, if I had known that. I wish you the best of luck, but since the enclosure was dropped, the likelihood of internal drive damage is so high that I don't want to be involved when you destroy your data.

Do you really think there would be internal damage? It sounds 100% fine, like it always has. These HDDs always make that sound when shaken, it is normal for them. Also keep in mind the HDD was dropped from a low height and while it was off. (Thank God)

When I ran TestDisk which took a few hours I didn't see any errors except the Invalid FAT boot sector, what does this mean?

Any help is greatly appreciated it.

you already being told that it's internal damage, drive was dropped, it does not matter 2 inches 2 feet drives are sensitive to shock like that, IMHO you are on your way to destroy that drive, hope you data it's not important

So guys... I managed to recover all my data... well, not even 'recover', the drive was absolutely fine. I connected them up via SATA and ran Raid Reconstructor and made a virtual image which I loaded into GetDataBack. My entire file system was there and I was able to copy everything over to my new drive.