hdd problem end of the world

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mercmanuk

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i have a 3tb hdd that ive been using for backup for a few months,its connected to a docking station and i have everything i need on there.last night i dropped several files onto it then watched a film from the drive.this morning i cant access the drive.in file management its showing as a 2.8tb raw healthy partition.when i try and access it ,it says it needs to be formatted.
i cant formatt it as i have all my ols pics of grandparents,mother, busines etc etc
help needed
 
If it's your backup drive, can't you just format it and then backup to it again?

Might take a while but at least it's only your backup drive.

A lot of people don't bother to do backups hence in this situation find they have lost all their stuff
 
As Corporal Jones says -- don't panic. The boot sector may have corrupted but it might be some operating system glitch. One thing to try would be to plug it into another docking station to see if that's where the problem lies. Even if the boot sector has corrupted there are specialist disc recovery programmes which may be able to recover the uncorrupted data------ DON'T TRY TO WRITE anything more to the disc whatever you do.
 
although a backup drive 50% of the data is only on this drive,
 
Is the disk making any sort of regular clicking noise? If it is, it is probably dead, and will need specialist recovery. Turn it off, and decide if the data is worth recovering from the disk.

No clicking is more probably FAT/MBR corruption, which is easier to deal with.

Try the disk in another PC, ( I assume its USB connect, as a backup) and see if it accessable. If not, you'll need some recovery software, like Data Recovery Software to Undelete Files; Disk recovery; Recover Deleted Files or similar.

Bear in mind recovery type software can be patchy, and you will probably not get all the data back.

Don't use the disk again for any data you value...
 
I'd suggest plugging the drive into another PC, directly by which I mean not in a USB caddy. Connect the Sata/IDE connector and power directly to the mother board so it will be seen as a second drive.

This way your not trying to boot the drive and hopefully you can try to recover data from it.
 
As others have said, try and stick it directly into your computer if you can. I have had external drives 'fail' in the past, and it's just turned out to be the enclosure that's gone.

I've noticed that they don't seem to handle regular use very well (being streamed from etc) in a lot of cases - most are designed with a back up nature in mind, so perform best with just that kind of use in practice. Constant use makes the caddy components quite hot, and if the caddy doesn't have any kind of fan or heat removal in place, you can see why they don't always last that long.
 
although a backup drive 50% of the data is only on this drive,

Moving forward, I would recommend altering this situation so that you have more than one backup.

You want to be in a situation where you couldn't give a monkey's if the potential failure you are now experience happens again.

People have laughed at my so called 'paranoia' in the past, but I am well versed with technology and with some sensible precautions, I am also the one resting easy should a backup fail.
 
update
fitted the drive into the pc direct to mothorboard,same message needs to be formatted.
search on net found a programme called eases data recovery wizard pro,found free copy and running at the moment ,its found all the files on the drive but says 11 hours to complete.i'll have to see what happens at the end

no idea why this happened never done anything like this before.
thanks for advise and i'll keep informed
 
no idea why this happened never done anything like this before.
thanks for advise and i'll keep informed


Hard drives are extremely complex and precise mechanical devices, and remarkably cheap. Thus, they can fail from time to time - normally without warning!

Backups are important if you need to keep data.
 
I'd suggest booting from any of Linux live CDs and copying data to a different HD. Linux will ignore the Windows's mess in the boot sector and will give you access to your data. In fact most of 'recovery' software is just a slimmed down Linux distros. You will not need to install anything on your computer, as Linux live CD (DVD) runs full operating system from the CD (DVD).
 
Check the label of the drive for the date as it may still be under warranty.

What make and model is it as a matter of cusriosity?
 
easeus data recovery wizard has finished,I've got a file with all the data that was on the backup hdd on another disc but it seems to be in shockwave flash formative installed a shockwave player but still nothing
 
Hi
did you use this -

Free Data Recovery Software to free recover deleted files and recover formatted or corrupt hard drives - EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Free Edition.

because it does say 'Recover 1 GB data for FREE!' which sounds like the trial version...I think you need this one -

Free Partition Recovery Software - Recover Deleted FAT/NTFS/Ext2/Ext3 Partition.

Alternatively, UBCD4Win is a very good live CD with a 'Windows' interface

UBCD for Windows

Just burn the CD, boot off it, and use the file recovery tools, 'unstoppable copier' is good
cheers
 
My impression is that the program lists all damaged files which can be recovered. You can then select which ones to recover up to a certain limit. One Gigabyte?? I assume that the results [ not the lost files themselves ] are in this file. Try right mouse clicking on the file and use OPEN WITH--- if a suitable program is not available you can go online and get the utility to search for a suitable program to open the file.
 
well lost the data but had 80% on the internal hdd's in the pc.
formatted the 3tb hdd to ntfs in the docking station,shows 2.7tb so all seems ok.started to reload data back onto the drive was ok until it got to about 2.5tb full then error appeared,changed to a raw hdd and cant access data.
connected to an internal sata port,formatted then tried again,all ok untill 2.5tb full and problems start all over .
change operating system from win 7 32bit to 62 bit system.
done everything again works fine this time when connected to internal sata port,but if i remove and use the docking station it changes the hdd from ntfs to raw again and i loose the data.
ive fitted the 3tb hdd inside the pc and removed the two 2tb drives and use them in the docking station.
all sorted but it was a long and head scratching week.

thanks for advise and help
 
If the drive's been giving you all those problems, I'd suggest there's something wrong with it and that you ditch it ASAP.
 
As already mentioned, NEVER have just a single copy of anything that you value. Hard disks can fail at any time, CDs/DVDs degrade and can become unreadable, etc.

I would also ditch that particular drive straight away.
 
I would also ditch that particular drive straight away.

Or check if it's still under warranty as most HDDs have a 2 or 3 year warranty

Also worth looking for a S.M.A.R.T tool which should show up any errors and predict the total failure date of the drive
 

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