I think I lost my hard drive. Help!

[Nate C.]

Hi folks,

Not sure if this is the right group for this question but from experience
this group seems to have the smartest people on it.

I have a homebuilt Asus A7N-based Win2K system. I just installed a firewire
card so I could capture movies from my mini DV cam. The card came with
Ulead VideoStudio 5.0 software which I set up and got running. I captured a
couple short test clips which worked out fine. I thought I was ready to
roll so I then tried a capture of a full hour-long tape. The default
storage folder for captured video was on the C: drive so I reassigned it for
my D: drive which is a physically separate Seagate 200 gb hd. During the
capture the program froze although I could still see the clock moving.
After the tape was done I got errors that my D: drive was unreadable. After
a restart I got new errors saying that the drive isn't formatted and asked
if I wanted to do it then - which I didn't do since I have lots of data on
there that I'd like to save. Any idea what I should do next?

Thanks a bunch,
Nate

 

[old jon]

Hi Nate, go to the Seagate site and download their Harddrive Tools. Do a
test of the drive, then come back with the results. best wishes..J

 

[Nate C.]

Thanks Jon. I'll do that tonight.

Hi Nate, go to the Seagate site and download their Harddrive Tools. Do a
test of the drive, then come back with the results. best wishes..J

 

[John Doe]

....

After the tape was done I got errors that my D: drive was
unreadable. After a restart I got new errors saying that the
drive isn't formatted and asked if I wanted to do it then -
which I didn't do since I have lots of data on there that I'd
like to save. Any idea what I should do next?

Yes. Do not write to the drive. Do not attempt any operation that
will write to the drive. Clone the drive using ghost or drive
image or any other well-known drive imaging software. After you
have a good copy, then attempt to troubleshoot the problem. A
backup is always necessary, especially critical when serious
problems which can lead to data loss are indicated. Now is the
time.

 

[David Maynard]

Hi folks,

Not sure if this is the right group for this question but from experience
this group seems to have the smartest people on it.

I have a homebuilt Asus A7N-based Win2K system. I just installed a firewire
card so I could capture movies from my mini DV cam. The card came with
Ulead VideoStudio 5.0 software which I set up and got running. I captured a
couple short test clips which worked out fine. I thought I was ready to
roll so I then tried a capture of a full hour-long tape. The default
storage folder for captured video was on the C: drive so I reassigned it for
my D: drive which is a physically separate Seagate 200 gb hd. During the
capture the program froze although I could still see the clock moving.
After the tape was done I got errors that my D: drive was unreadable. After
a restart I got new errors saying that the drive isn't formatted and asked
if I wanted to do it then - which I didn't do since I have lots of data on
there that I'd like to save. Any idea what I should do next?

Thanks a bunch,
Nate

The suggestions to first backup and then run diagnostic tools are good
ideas since it's possible the drive simply failed but the size of it makes
me wonder if your system is setup to handle 48 Bit LBA as that's also what
would happen if it isn't and it tried to write into the area above 137 gig.

 

[Nate C.]

Hey guys,

Thanks for the info and advice so far. I tried a number of things last
night. Based on Jon's advice I tried running the Seagate diagnostics. The
most I could do was the file system check which gave me the following info:

Results for volume D: ()

Volume Label:
Volume Size: 0 bytes
The file system contains errors that need to be repaired.

None of the other Seagate diagnostics will work -- they just freeze up.

I tried a few Windows things also. When I went through My Computer > Manage

Storage > Disk Management, the disk drive shows up and says it's healthy.

Even has the available space listed (186.31). However where it is supposed
to list the file system, it's blank. Through the same window, I tried to
use the error checking, and when I hit start in the error checking window
just disappears and nothing else happens.

A couple other things: When I right click D: and check the properties,
there's no volume label and everything comes up zero. However when I check
the properties through device manager, it says "this device is working
properly". I also tried Chkdsk D: and got the message that the file format
is RAW.

I tried using Ghost to clone the drive, but the program doesn't see the
disk, only C: shows up.

It's weird; it's like some aspects of Windows recognize the drive but others
don't. At this point all I want to be able to do is get in there and back
up any data that I hadn't backed up already then I'd be happy to re-format
the drive if I had to. Hopefully there are enough clues there for one of
you smart people to give me an idea of what's going on.

Thanks again,
Nate

 

[old jon]

Hi Nate, time now to see whether something like `Isoblaster` or some other
similar software can find anything on the drive. I`m an old man, and my
brain won`t work properly today, but don`t give up yet, some of the other
guys will get back to you I sure, there`s no doubt tho` that the file system
is corrupt. still trying to think. best wishes..J

 

[Nate C.]

No problem, man. Thanks for trying to help. I also posted my problem to
one of the Windows groups so if it's a Windows situation, hopefully between
you guys and somebody there, I can get things back to "normal".

-Nate

 

[John Doe]

I tried using Ghost to clone the drive, but the program doesn't
see the disk, only C: shows up.
It's weird; it's like some aspects of Windows recognize the
drive but others don't. At this point all I want to be able to
do is get in there and back up any data that I hadn't backed up
already then I'd be happy to re-format the drive if I had to.
Hopefully there are enough clues there for one of you smart
people to give me an idea of what's going on.

Smart people should insist that you clone the hard disk before you
attempt to troubleshoot.

But, you know the risk better than we do.

The storage group might be more familiar with backing up hard disk
data.

Good luck.

 

[Nate C.]

Smart people should insist that you clone the hard disk before you
attempt to troubleshoot.

I tried.

But, you know the risk better than we do.
?

The storage group might be more familiar with backing up hard disk
data.

Thanks, I'll check it out.

 

[My Name]

I tried.


Thanks, I'll check it out.

Easy, free, clone tool here:
http://www.xxcopy.com