Disk Defrag Changes File System and Files Disappear

  • Thread starter Thread starter JRW
  • Start date Start date
J

JRW

I have a Maxtor external hard drive using the NTFS file
system. The disk contains mainly video and photo files.

I used the Disk Defrag option under disk management.
Analysis of the disk recommended defragging.

After beginning the process, the process stopped in a few
minutes and all of hte files disappeared.

In Windows Explorer, the drive appears; however, it does
not show any disk space used or available.

In the Disk Management summary, it shows 100% of disk
available. However, the file system changed from NTFS to
RAW.

Any ideas as to what's going on to cause this and whether
or not the files are recoverable?

I performed a similar defrag on another drive...same make
and model and file types. It took about 3 hours, but
without incident.

I have a third similar drive where this opccurred, but not
with the defrag operation....in that case, it just
happened and I am now trying to recover the files
commercially. Any suggestions on home software that might
work would also be appreciated.
 
That's one on me.. I have an external USB drive, NTFS with no OS on it, of
course. Assume you have none either, (just other files?).. It would seem,
although i am not a 'tech', that if the word 'raw' is shown, that this is a
new partition that has not been formatted(?) or activated (that ) partition?
i defrag my USB external with no problem... I am very interested in a
knowledgeable persons opinion on your problem..
 
I have several of these Maxtor external hard drives and
formatted each in NTFS when first starting to use them.

In Disk Management, they always showed File System as NTFS
and everything else looked fine....Healthy, Active, etc.
I could see the disk size, available space, etc.

One disk had used 225 GB of 233 GB available. It was
running a little slow and all of a sudden did not appear
in Disk Management or in Windows Explorer / My Computer
listing. Eventually, it re-appeared withe the correct
Drive letter, but Windows Explorer did not display the
disk size or available / unused space.

When I checked 'Properties' for the drive, I noticed that
the File System had changed from NTFS to RAW. I had not
done anything to re-format, etc. It occurred all by
itself.

I then tried the defrag analyzer tool while in Disk
Management and defragged another / different 250 GB drive
without incident...it just took a lot of time.

Feeling brave, I went to another drive [120 GB] and
started the defrag process. After just a couple of
minutes, the process stopped and the drive disappeared
from any listing.

Eventually, I was able to have it display and, again, saw
that the file system had changed from NTFS to RAW.

I am now trying to use OnTrack data recovery software to
see how much I might be able to save. It appears that
most / all of the files are still there.

If there were some way to reset the file system to NTFS
from RAW OR if there is some way to use the files in the
RAW mode, that would be great. However, I am afriad that
I cannot re-set the File System without formatting and
losing all data forever.

I don't understand how you can not have a file system on
an external hard drive....I thought that was a requirement?

If you can shed some light on that issue, please do so.

Thanks for listening, hopes this helps clarify the
situation.

JRW
 
I read, on here, that a Microsoft MVP or somebody said you cannot currently
install Windows XP on an external USB 2 drive..

As i said, i am not a tech, but I would imagine you can have a FILE system
onna drive without an Operating System being present; the file system would
enable the presence of an OS in most circumstances. I think of it this way
(although i have not enough technical knowledge to know if i am correct in
this)

It might be like drawing a grid on a page in order to place other items on
it, without the grid, the other things would not stay put on the page and
would be in a random and scrambled order (or DISorder, so to
speak)...Remember, I am only hypothesizing here, because i am not a
programmer.
hopefully, someone with the knowledge of this will be able to give you a
more accurate explanation.
travel489 said:
I have several of these Maxtor external hard drives and
formatted each in NTFS when first starting to use them.

In Disk Management, they always showed File System as NTFS
and everything else looked fine....Healthy, Active, etc.
I could see the disk size, available space, etc.

One disk had used 225 GB of 233 GB available. It was
running a little slow and all of a sudden did not appear
in Disk Management or in Windows Explorer / My Computer
listing. Eventually, it re-appeared withe the correct
Drive letter, but Windows Explorer did not display the
disk size or available / unused space.

When I checked 'Properties' for the drive, I noticed that
the File System had changed from NTFS to RAW. I had not
done anything to re-format, etc. It occurred all by
itself.

I then tried the defrag analyzer tool while in Disk
Management and defragged another / different 250 GB drive
without incident...it just took a lot of time.

Feeling brave, I went to another drive [120 GB] and
started the defrag process. After just a couple of
minutes, the process stopped and the drive disappeared
from any listing.

Eventually, I was able to have it display and, again, saw
that the file system had changed from NTFS to RAW.

I am now trying to use OnTrack data recovery software to
see how much I might be able to save. It appears that
most / all of the files are still there.

If there were some way to reset the file system to NTFS
from RAW OR if there is some way to use the files in the
RAW mode, that would be great. However, I am afriad that
I cannot re-set the File System without formatting and
losing all data forever.

I don't understand how you can not have a file system on
an external hard drive....I thought that was a requirement?

If you can shed some light on that issue, please do so.

Thanks for listening, hopes this helps clarify the
situation.

JRW
-----Original Message-----
That's one on me.. I have an external USB drive, NTFS with no OS on it, of
course. Assume you have none either, (just other files?).. It would seem,
although i am not a 'tech', that if the word 'raw' is shown, that this is a
new partition that has not been formatted(?) or activated (that ) partition?
i defrag my USB external with no problem... I am very interested in a
knowledgeable persons opinion on your problem..



.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
You're a logical thinker, which is great. Unfortunately, computers do not
always operate logically.

All storage media, from hard disks to floppies, must have a file system to
be used. Windows XP can only be installed on an internal hard disk. There
are many reasons for this, but here's one: Windows has to detect its
hardware environent in order for its plug-and-play capabilities to install
drivers.

Rocky

Peter said:
I read, on here, that a Microsoft MVP or somebody said you cannot currently
install Windows XP on an external USB 2 drive..

As i said, i am not a tech, but I would imagine you can have a FILE system
onna drive without an Operating System being present; the file system would
enable the presence of an OS in most circumstances. I think of it this way
(although i have not enough technical knowledge to know if i am correct in
this)

It might be like drawing a grid on a page in order to place other items on
it, without the grid, the other things would not stay put on the page and
would be in a random and scrambled order (or DISorder, so to
speak)...Remember, I am only hypothesizing here, because i am not a
programmer.
hopefully, someone with the knowledge of this will be able to give you a
more accurate explanation.
travel489 said:
I have several of these Maxtor external hard drives and
formatted each in NTFS when first starting to use them.

In Disk Management, they always showed File System as NTFS
and everything else looked fine....Healthy, Active, etc.
I could see the disk size, available space, etc.

One disk had used 225 GB of 233 GB available. It was
running a little slow and all of a sudden did not appear
in Disk Management or in Windows Explorer / My Computer
listing. Eventually, it re-appeared withe the correct
Drive letter, but Windows Explorer did not display the
disk size or available / unused space.

When I checked 'Properties' for the drive, I noticed that
the File System had changed from NTFS to RAW. I had not
done anything to re-format, etc. It occurred all by
itself.

I then tried the defrag analyzer tool while in Disk
Management and defragged another / different 250 GB drive
without incident...it just took a lot of time.

Feeling brave, I went to another drive [120 GB] and
started the defrag process. After just a couple of
minutes, the process stopped and the drive disappeared
from any listing.

Eventually, I was able to have it display and, again, saw
that the file system had changed from NTFS to RAW.

I am now trying to use OnTrack data recovery software to
see how much I might be able to save. It appears that
most / all of the files are still there.

If there were some way to reset the file system to NTFS
from RAW OR if there is some way to use the files in the
RAW mode, that would be great. However, I am afriad that
I cannot re-set the File System without formatting and
losing all data forever.

I don't understand how you can not have a file system on
an external hard drive....I thought that was a requirement?

If you can shed some light on that issue, please do so.

Thanks for listening, hopes this helps clarify the
situation.

JRW
-----Original Message-----
That's one on me.. I have an external USB drive, NTFS with no OS on it, of
course. Assume you have none either, (just other files?).. It would seem,
although i am not a 'tech', that if the word 'raw' is shown, that this is a
new partition that has not been formatted(?) or activated (that ) partition?
i defrag my USB external with no problem... I am very interested in a
knowledgeable persons opinion on your problem..
I have a Maxtor external hard drive using the NTFS file
system. The disk contains mainly video and photo files.

I used the Disk Defrag option under disk management.
Analysis of the disk recommended defragging.

After beginning the process, the process stopped in a few
minutes and all of hte files disappeared.

In Windows Explorer, the drive appears; however, it does
not show any disk space used or available.

In the Disk Management summary, it shows 100% of disk
available. However, the file system changed from NTFS to
RAW.

Any ideas as to what's going on to cause this and whether
or not the files are recoverable?

I performed a similar defrag on another drive...same make
and model and file types. It took about 3 hours, but
without incident.

I have a third similar drive where this opccurred, but not
with the defrag operation....in that case, it just
happened and I am now trying to recover the files
commercially. Any suggestions on home software that might
work would also be appreciated.


.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Thanks, but that still does not tell me if i am correct with the idea that a
'file system' must be present for an 'os' to be installed and that a file
system can exist without an OS being installed. I already have said i
understood that XP would not install onna external drive..
And as far as i know, computers always operate from logic.
 
All--

Thanks for all of the dialogue and input.

From my experience, I can add that I did not have an OS
[XP] installed on the external hard drive and it worked
just fine until all of the other stuff started to happen.

There are 3 USB 2.0 external hard drives all piggy-backed
and they have capacitites ranging from 120 to 250 GB. I
created the NTFS file system so that I could have files of
more than 4GB or so. In fact, some of the files are 10 GB
or more. As I understand it, without the NTFS format, I
would have been limited to the smaller file size....which
wasn't good for video editing.

As I see it, the external hard drives are no different
than the D drive [internal]. They are just another place
to warehouse additional data.

In speaking with professional data recovery folks, it now
sounds as though I experienced 2 disk failures at almost
the same time and for different unknown reasons.

At start-up of the computer, it sometimes displays a
message that Checkdisk determined a corrupt Master File
Table and that the disk is 'dirty'. Other times, it
begins a 3 stage process of trying to fix the drive.
First I get the message that a file cannot be
read....about 22,000times [files]. Step 2 indicates that
the file cannot be hotfixed because of a lack of disk
space.

What really doesn't make sense is that when I go to disk
mangement, it shows the drives are both health, on-line,
active, etc. And that the entire disk space is
available...i.e., there is nothing occupying any disk
space. Yet, when I run the OnTrack data recovery
software, I see that almost all of the files are still
there and are in good shape for recovery.....however, I
learned today that Good doesn't mean recoverable....it all
depends on how the data is stored / linked. If it's
spread all over the drive, then the chances of recovery go
down real fast.

Not sure this helps the dialogue, but it helps me remember
where I am in the process. Commercial recovery is going
to something else.
 
On Wed, 14 Apr 2004 14:00:40 -0700, "travel489"
I have several of these Maxtor external hard drives and
formatted each in NTFS when first starting to use them.
Click to expand...
One disk had used 225 GB of 233 GB available. It was
running a little slow and all of a sudden did not appear
in Disk Management or in Windows Explorer / My Computer
listing. Eventually, it re-appeared withe the correct
Drive letter, but Windows Explorer did not display the
disk size or available / unused space.
Click to expand...
When I checked 'Properties' for the drive, I noticed that
the File System had changed from NTFS to RAW. I had not
done anything to re-format, etc. It occurred all by itself.
Click to expand...

Yup - it's trashed.
Feeling brave, I went to another drive [120 GB] and
started the defrag process. After just a couple of
minutes, the process stopped and the drive disappeared
from any listing.
Click to expand...

Seeing a pattern here...
Eventually, I was able to have it display and, again, saw
that the file system had changed from NTFS to RAW.
Click to expand...

Another trashed volume. "Raw" means it can't see what file system is
on there; suggests trashed MBR or PBR. Ugly stuff, time for data
recovery if you want to see anything on it again.
I am now trying to use OnTrack data recovery software to
see how much I might be able to save. It appears that
most / all of the files are still there.
Click to expand...
If you can shed some light on that issue, please do so.
Click to expand...

External drives and drive bays can bite your ass BIG TIME:
- HDs often overheat in drive bays
- drive bay data cabling isn't up to spec above UIDE33
- long data cables can break signal / timing standards
- flaky power to external drives can corrupt and trash them
- careful if hot-swapping HDs; does the interface support this?
- beware on standby power when ATX PC is "off"


-------------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - - -
Click to expand...
Running Windows-based av to kill active malware is like striking
a match to see if what you are standing in is water or petrol.
 
It's' an external drive that you have. If you took the case apart, would there be a regular drive inside that you could attach to a ribbon plug inside the computer. My guess is that xp would recognize it and give a more accurate picture of what is there.
 
When you are answering an earlier post you should reply to the same thread if you want your contribution to be read in context.

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~~~~~~


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FCA

Stourport, Worcs, England
Enquire, plan and execute.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
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