Please HELP with external hard drive issue!

[JuanAdams]

Okay, I'm pretty sure this thing is toast, but I want some
verification...

It's a Western Digital Passport portable external drive - 250gigger.
Using it with XP SP2.
Had it about 9 months. It worked just fine all this time. Actually I
just used it for Backing up my music but I have MOST of my stuff also
backed up on a Seagate drive as well. Thank goodness.

I didn't use it much because it was mostly just for backing up my
backup. It was on the floor near my CPU, never got batted around,
never transported it and seldom added or used files on it. No reason
it should have died, it never got hot, but the other day I went to
add something to it and I got the error message:

"Drive is not accessible. File or disc is corrupt and unreadable".

But here's what seems weird to me:
It is still recognized in Computer Management. It shows the drive
there, BUT it no longer shows that it is NFTS formatted, it shows as
not formatted. Though somewhere else it shows as RAW.

But next to the drive it says "Healthy (Active)" and somewhere it also
says "online". It shows a capacity of 232 gigs or something like that
which would seem to indicate that all the data has been wiped out and
there is no file formatting and so it is showing empty, right? (I did
have it almost FULL.)

So is there ANY way I can try to revive this thing or is it definitely
DEAD??

I did the XP troubleshooting thing - worthless. It says the driver is
fine and shows it as healthy and active, just nothing on it and no
formatting.

By the way, I'll never ever buy another WD drive. Their Limited 3 Year
Warranty, it turns out, is such that they will give me a great deal on
another p.o.s. WD external drive. By "great deal" I mean that they
offer me the generous option to buy a new one on their web site for
more than what I can buy one at Best Buy. Wow! What a great effin'
warranty! (Guess I should have read the fine print... )

Well, if this is the way they want to treat customers, fine... But the
fact of the matter is, this is the way to LOSE customers, and they
have lost this one for life, even if now I DO get the thing to work
again, which is highly unlikely, right?

Thanks for your feedback and any suggestions!

 

[PJG]

Okay, I'm pretty sure this thing is toast, but I want some
verification...

It's a Western Digital Passport portable external drive - 250gigger.
Using it with XP SP2.
Had it about 9 months. It worked just fine all this time. Actually I
just used it for Backing up my music but I have MOST of my stuff also
backed up on a Seagate drive as well. Thank goodness.

I didn't use it much because it was mostly just for backing up my
backup. It was on the floor near my CPU, never got batted around,
never transported it and seldom added or used files on it. No reason
it should have died, it never got hot, but the other day I went to
add something to it and I got the error message:

"Drive is not accessible. File or disc is corrupt and unreadable".

But here's what seems weird to me:
It is still recognized in Computer Management. It shows the drive
there, BUT it no longer shows that it is NFTS formatted, it shows as
not formatted. Though somewhere else it shows as RAW.

But next to the drive it says "Healthy (Active)" and somewhere it also
says "online". It shows a capacity of 232 gigs or something like that
which would seem to indicate that all the data has been wiped out and
there is no file formatting and so it is showing empty, right? (I did
have it almost FULL.)

So is there ANY way I can try to revive this thing or is it definitely
DEAD??

I did the XP troubleshooting thing - worthless. It says the driver is
fine and shows it as healthy and active, just nothing on it and no
formatting.

By the way, I'll never ever buy another WD drive. Their Limited 3 Year
Warranty, it turns out, is such that they will give me a great deal on
another p.o.s. WD external drive. By "great deal" I mean that they
offer me the generous option to buy a new one on their web site for
more than what I can buy one at Best Buy. Wow! What a great effin'
warranty! (Guess I should have read the fine print... )

Well, if this is the way they want to treat customers, fine... But the
fact of the matter is, this is the way to LOSE customers, and they
have lost this one for life, even if now I DO get the thing to work
again, which is highly unlikely, right?

Thanks for your feedback and any suggestions!

I'd say best have a technician test the drive and casing for you, my guess
is that the drive isn't spinning and thus isn't fuctioning correctly this
could be because of power to the drive or the drive is faulty. As far as
western Digital drives I bought a pair of 80GB 10000RPM drives and they are
still working since around 2004/5. I've had problems with all makes of drives
non of them are special don't put your trust in these things they're bound to
let you down some time It's always best to have a backup of everything. Good
Luck.

 

[Lil' Dave]

Okay, I'm pretty sure this thing is toast, but I want some
verification...

It's a Western Digital Passport portable external drive - 250gigger.
Using it with XP SP2.
Had it about 9 months. It worked just fine all this time. Actually I
just used it for Backing up my music but I have MOST of my stuff also
backed up on a Seagate drive as well. Thank goodness.

I didn't use it much because it was mostly just for backing up my
backup. It was on the floor near my CPU, never got batted around,
never transported it and seldom added or used files on it. No reason
it should have died, it never got hot, but the other day I went to
add something to it and I got the error message:

"Drive is not accessible. File or disc is corrupt and unreadable".

But here's what seems weird to me:
It is still recognized in Computer Management. It shows the drive
there, BUT it no longer shows that it is NFTS formatted, it shows as
not formatted. Though somewhere else it shows as RAW.

But next to the drive it says "Healthy (Active)" and somewhere it also
says "online". It shows a capacity of 232 gigs or something like that
which would seem to indicate that all the data has been wiped out and
there is no file formatting and so it is showing empty, right? (I did
have it almost FULL.)

So is there ANY way I can try to revive this thing or is it definitely
DEAD??

I did the XP troubleshooting thing - worthless. It says the driver is
fine and shows it as healthy and active, just nothing on it and no
formatting.

By the way, I'll never ever buy another WD drive. Their Limited 3 Year
Warranty, it turns out, is such that they will give me a great deal on
another p.o.s. WD external drive. By "great deal" I mean that they
offer me the generous option to buy a new one on their web site for
more than what I can buy one at Best Buy. Wow! What a great effin'
warranty! (Guess I should have read the fine print... )

Well, if this is the way they want to treat customers, fine... But the
fact of the matter is, this is the way to LOSE customers, and they
have lost this one for life, even if now I DO get the thing to work
again, which is highly unlikely, right?

Thanks for your feedback and any suggestions!

It cannot read a filesystem within the partition already created. 238GB is
normal for a 250GB physical disk drive. The healthy part is the partition.

Western Digital offers software for checking out your EXTERNAL hard drive
at:
wdc.com or westerndigital.com

Warranties on new hard drives have all diminished in the past 3 years. Both
retail and brown and white box. WD isn't the only one.

 

[Paul]

Okay, I'm pretty sure this thing is toast, but I want some
verification...

It's a Western Digital Passport portable external drive - 250gigger.
Using it with XP SP2.
Had it about 9 months. It worked just fine all this time. Actually I
just used it for Backing up my music but I have MOST of my stuff also
backed up on a Seagate drive as well. Thank goodness.

I didn't use it much because it was mostly just for backing up my
backup. It was on the floor near my CPU, never got batted around,
never transported it and seldom added or used files on it. No reason
it should have died, it never got hot, but the other day I went to
add something to it and I got the error message:

"Drive is not accessible. File or disc is corrupt and unreadable".

But here's what seems weird to me:
It is still recognized in Computer Management. It shows the drive
there, BUT it no longer shows that it is NFTS formatted, it shows as
not formatted. Though somewhere else it shows as RAW.

But next to the drive it says "Healthy (Active)" and somewhere it also
says "online". It shows a capacity of 232 gigs or something like that
which would seem to indicate that all the data has been wiped out and
there is no file formatting and so it is showing empty, right? (I did
have it almost FULL.)

So is there ANY way I can try to revive this thing or is it definitely
DEAD??

I did the XP troubleshooting thing - worthless. It says the driver is
fine and shows it as healthy and active, just nothing on it and no
formatting.

By the way, I'll never ever buy another WD drive. Their Limited 3 Year
Warranty, it turns out, is such that they will give me a great deal on
another p.o.s. WD external drive. By "great deal" I mean that they
offer me the generous option to buy a new one on their web site for
more than what I can buy one at Best Buy. Wow! What a great effin'
warranty! (Guess I should have read the fine print... )

Well, if this is the way they want to treat customers, fine... But the
fact of the matter is, this is the way to LOSE customers, and they
have lost this one for life, even if now I DO get the thing to work
again, which is highly unlikely, right?

Thanks for your feedback and any suggestions!

You could try a copy of TestDisk, and see if the partition can be recovered.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step

Downloads are on this page. Unpack the zip, and double click testdisk_win.exe.
When you create a log file, it appears to go into the same folder as the
executable is in.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download

If you are ever in a menu in there, which does not include a "Quit" option,
and you don't like where the program is headed, press "control-c". That
doesn't seem to be documented too well, but is typically used in a Linux
or Unix environment to stop program execution. The program should quit
immediately. I don't know if it would be healthy to use that key
combination, while the program was in the middle of doing the repair...
I've only tried it, to escape a menu level I didn't like.

Since that program is a "repair-in-place" program, there is a risk
it could further screw up your drive. But if you're only interested
in a "maybe" type recovery, then it is worth a shot. If you were
a little more serious about the 250GB disk, you'd copy it sector
by sector to another drive first. So that way, if TestDisk made
a mess, your data would not be lost. I learned an important lesson
about data recovery years ago, when a recovery program made
recovery impossible on some media I had (the recovery program erased
a duplicate directory structure). So I'm required to give
that warning about any attempt to recover data with an in-place
repair tool.

If your boot drive was screwed up, then you might need another
version of TestDisk. For example, I have a Linux LiveCD that
has a copy of TestDisk included on it. So there are other environments
you can run it in. My Knoppix CD allows booting the computer right
from the CD, and I could run TestDisk from there.

And congratulations on having two backup drives. It is too bad
more people don't do that.

HTH,
Paul

 

[Olórin]

Okay, I'm pretty sure this thing is toast, but I want some
verification...

It's a Western Digital Passport portable external drive - 250gigger.
Using it with XP SP2.
Had it about 9 months. It worked just fine all this time. Actually I
just used it for Backing up my music but I have MOST of my stuff also
backed up on a Seagate drive as well. Thank goodness.

I didn't use it much because it was mostly just for backing up my
backup. It was on the floor near my CPU, never got batted around,
never transported it and seldom added or used files on it. No reason
it should have died, it never got hot, but the other day I went to
add something to it and I got the error message:

"Drive is not accessible. File or disc is corrupt and unreadable".

But here's what seems weird to me:
It is still recognized in Computer Management. It shows the drive
there, BUT it no longer shows that it is NFTS formatted, it shows as
not formatted. Though somewhere else it shows as RAW.

But next to the drive it says "Healthy (Active)" and somewhere it also
says "online". It shows a capacity of 232 gigs or something like that
which would seem to indicate that all the data has been wiped out and
there is no file formatting and so it is showing empty, right? (I did
have it almost FULL.)

So is there ANY way I can try to revive this thing or is it definitely
DEAD??

I did the XP troubleshooting thing - worthless. It says the driver is
fine and shows it as healthy and active, just nothing on it and no
formatting.

By the way, I'll never ever buy another WD drive. Their Limited 3 Year
Warranty, it turns out, is such that they will give me a great deal on
another p.o.s. WD external drive. By "great deal" I mean that they
offer me the generous option to buy a new one on their web site for
more than what I can buy one at Best Buy. Wow! What a great effin'
warranty! (Guess I should have read the fine print... )

Well, if this is the way they want to treat customers, fine... But the
fact of the matter is, this is the way to LOSE customers, and they
have lost this one for life, even if now I DO get the thing to work
again, which is highly unlikely, right?

Thanks for your feedback and any suggestions!

If you don't need the data on it (because it all already exists on your
Seagate drive or elsewhere too) then see if NTFS-formatting it in Computer
Management renders it usable.

If you do need the data, try as philo suggests - perhaps booting to a Linux
live CD of some sort (Knoppix is a good one to start with), either with the
drive USB-attached or fitted in your PC, if possible. I had the same thing
happen to an internal IDE drive - something had gone squiffy in the
partition table or somewhere, and the drive showed as RAW; Linux saw the
data fine and I dragged it all off without problems.

There's a difference between capacity and free space: a report of 232GB
capacity says nothing about how much of it is used, just what size it is
overall!

 

[Rockingham500]

Okay, I'm pretty sure this thing is toast, but I want some
verification...

It's a Western Digital Passport portable external drive - 250gigger.
Using it with XP SP2.
Had it about 9 months. It worked just fine all this time. Actually I
just used it for Backing up my music but I have MOST of my stuff also
backed up on a Seagate drive as well. Thank goodness.

I didn't use it much because it was mostly just for backing up my
backup. It was on the floor near my CPU, never got batted around,
never transported it and seldom added or used files on it. No reason
it should have died, it never got hot,  but the other day I went to
add something to it and I got the error message:

"Drive is not accessible. File or disc is corrupt and unreadable".

But here's what seems weird to me:
It is still recognized in Computer Management. It shows the drive
there, BUT it no longer shows that it is NFTS formatted, it shows as
not formatted. Though somewhere else it shows as RAW.

But next to the drive it says "Healthy (Active)" and somewhere it also
says "online". It shows a capacity of 232 gigs or something like that
which would seem to indicate that all the data has been wiped out and
there is no file formatting and so it is showing empty, right? (I did
have it almost FULL.)

So is there ANY way I can try to revive this thing or is it definitely
DEAD??

I did the XP troubleshooting thing - worthless. It says the driver is
fine and shows it as healthy and active, just nothing on it and no
formatting.

By the way, I'll never ever buy another WD drive. Their Limited 3 Year
Warranty, it turns out, is such that they will give me a great deal on
another p.o.s. WD external drive. By "great deal" I mean that they
offer me the generous option to buy a new one on their web site for
more than what I can buy one at Best Buy. Wow! What a great effin'
warranty! (Guess I should have read the fine print... )

Well, if this is the way they want to treat customers, fine... But the
fact of the matter is, this is the way to LOSE customers, and they
have lost this one for life, even if now I DO get the thing to work
again, which is highly unlikely, right?

Thanks for your feedback and any suggestions!

You can create an image of the drive using File Restore Professional.
This is a free function of the product and will secure your data
before you attempt any data recovery. You can then reformat your drive
and then restore the files back to your drive (from the image). You
can download File Restore Professional here: www.pcrecovery.com

 

[Ian D]

Okay, I'm pretty sure this thing is toast, but I want some
verification...

It's a Western Digital Passport portable external drive - 250gigger.
Using it with XP SP2.
Had it about 9 months. It worked just fine all this time. Actually I
just used it for Backing up my music but I have MOST of my stuff also
backed up on a Seagate drive as well. Thank goodness.

I didn't use it much because it was mostly just for backing up my
backup. It was on the floor near my CPU, never got batted around,
never transported it and seldom added or used files on it. No reason
it should have died, it never got hot, but the other day I went to
add something to it and I got the error message:

"Drive is not accessible. File or disc is corrupt and unreadable".

But here's what seems weird to me:
It is still recognized in Computer Management. It shows the drive
there, BUT it no longer shows that it is NFTS formatted, it shows as
not formatted. Though somewhere else it shows as RAW.

But next to the drive it says "Healthy (Active)" and somewhere it also
says "online". It shows a capacity of 232 gigs or something like that
which would seem to indicate that all the data has been wiped out and
there is no file formatting and so it is showing empty, right? (I did
have it almost FULL.)

So is there ANY way I can try to revive this thing or is it definitely
DEAD??

I did the XP troubleshooting thing - worthless. It says the driver is
fine and shows it as healthy and active, just nothing on it and no
formatting.

By the way, I'll never ever buy another WD drive. Their Limited 3 Year
Warranty, it turns out, is such that they will give me a great deal on
another p.o.s. WD external drive. By "great deal" I mean that they
offer me the generous option to buy a new one on their web site for
more than what I can buy one at Best Buy. Wow! What a great effin'
warranty! (Guess I should have read the fine print... )

Well, if this is the way they want to treat customers, fine... But the
fact of the matter is, this is the way to LOSE customers, and they
have lost this one for life, even if now I DO get the thing to work
again, which is highly unlikely, right?

Thanks for your feedback and any suggestions!

I don't know where you got your warranty info from, but in
North America the drive is warranteed for 3 years. The
RMA replacement may be a refurbished drive. I bought
my 320GB Passport in 2008, and it's warranteed until the
fall of 2011.

 

[JuanAdams]

I don't know where you got your warranty info from, but in
North America the drive is warranteed for 3 years.  The
RMA replacement may be a refurbished drive.  I bought
my 320GB Passport in 2008, and it's warranteed until the
fall of 2011.

THANKS MUCH to ALL for the info and suggestions.

Just a bit more info:
Yes, I do want the data. And I would never use the drive again, even
if I could recover the data; I would feel I could not trust it.

I had formatted it to NTFS when I began using it as all my drives are
NTFS. Just f.y.i..

I will try some of the suggestions you guys gave. Thanks!

As to the warranty info I got that from wdc.com, W.D.'s warranty web
site. While it is warrantied for 3 years, as I pointed out, that
warranty is for all practical purposes worthless because all they do
is offer you a replacement drive (I don't think it said it was
rebuilt, so I assume it must be a new one) at a price that his higher
than what you can buy one for at a good store.

According to the warranty paper that came with it (I just found it) it
does say that I can call WD on a one-issue basis for free, so unless I
called them before (which I am pretty sure I did not - I have one
other WD drive so I am not positive) then I should be able to call
them and they can lead me through some sort of procedure for finding
out if it's recoverable or not. If what they suggest does not work,
I'll try the above.

Thanks again!

 

[JuanAdams]

P.S. I do agree with what someone here (or was it in another forum)
said: that no drive can be trusted and you must have more than one
back up if your files are valuable and that the most SURE back up is
to disc or tape. Problem is when you have some 500gigs of stuff to
back up, discs are not really a practical option.

I know nothing about using tape as a back up. I will google it but if
anyone here knows and cares to share, is that really a practical
option, or is it very expensive? Any suggestions on that option?

It seems my plan of having 2 drives to back up the files seems pretty
safe as long as I quickly replace the broken drive with a new one and
transfer the files from the 2nd backup drive to the new one. Not that
cheap when these things break within a year! But I guess it's the only
game in town. The files I'm backing up are mostly just mp3's so it's
not like they're irreplaceable - though SOME are very hard to get
(rare bootlegs, etc.).

Another thing I plan to do is get a new computer with a 750gig drive
so I can back up all my files now 3 times: once on the C drive too
which I have not been doing because I only have a 50 gig C drive on my
6 year old computer!

This is a bit OFF TOPIC but if anyone wants to answer I'd appreciate
it, or if you can recommend the best group to go to for opinions on
this:

I am looking into buying a discontinued Gateway at Best Buy that has
an 8gig DDR2 memory and an AMD x4 64-bit quad core processor 9500
computer for $600 without monitor (which I don't need.) One feature I
think I like about it is that it has 2 front loading trays with a door
behind which you can easily install 2 internal hard drives easily
without having to open up the tower.

1) Is AMD okay or do I really need to stick with Intel?
2) Is Gateway okay or is Dell or HP better?

As for my usage I mostly do a lot of downloading of mp3's and movie
(avi) files using Agent, and I do a bit of website mastering and
maintenance for my own web sites. And I like to make dvd's from avi's.
Other than that I'm not really a power user I wouldn't say. My current
old computer with only 500mb of RAM keeps getting slower and slower. I
assume the memory gets eaten up and not recovered and that causes it
to slow down as the day goes on. Also I have trouble having more than
3-4 programs open along with my browser.

Another option for buying a new compu is a Dell, which is what I've
been using for the last 10 years (2 back to back purchases of Dells).
Is there a particular forum you can recommend where I could ask
opinions on a couple different computer choices and get feedback as to
which is the better buy? I am computer literate but not familiar with
the latest technologies and who is the better manufacturer of chips,
which type RAM is best and etc.. I just know I need a bigger hard
drive and more RAM. Is a Quad core processor a lot better than non-
quad even if it's an AMD vs. Intel? Or is an Intel best even if it's
only dual? These are the kinds of questions I have.

Oh - and Am I going to HATE Vista? Seems it's the only game in town if
you get a new compu. They want to charage $150 to have XP installed at
Dell!

 

[R. McCarty]

Forget streaming tape for your type of data. If it was me and I had
to backup that amount of content I'd consider a Blu-Ray burner ($200).
The media is still expensive but being able to put 25 Gigabytes on a
optical disk gives you more "Permanency" than any magnetic media.
Once burned & verified you wouldn't have to backup the same data
over & over and could just add new content. Last time I checked a
Blu-Ray disk ( One Write ) is $9 and re-writable are ~$20 each.

 

[Ian D]

I don't know where you got your warranty info from, but in
North America the drive is warranteed for 3 years. The
RMA replacement may be a refurbished drive. I bought
my 320GB Passport in 2008, and it's warranteed until the
fall of 2011.

THANKS MUCH to ALL for the info and suggestions.

Just a bit more info:
Yes, I do want the data. And I would never use the drive again, even
if I could recover the data; I would feel I could not trust it.

I had formatted it to NTFS when I began using it as all my drives are
NTFS. Just f.y.i..

I will try some of the suggestions you guys gave. Thanks!

As to the warranty info I got that from wdc.com, W.D.'s warranty web
site. While it is warrantied for 3 years, as I pointed out, that
warranty is for all practical purposes worthless because all they do
is offer you a replacement drive (I don't think it said it was
rebuilt, so I assume it must be a new one) at a price that his higher
than what you can buy one for at a good store.

According to the warranty paper that came with it (I just found it) it
does say that I can call WD on a one-issue basis for free, so unless I
called them before (which I am pretty sure I did not - I have one
other WD drive so I am not positive) then I should be able to call
them and they can lead me through some sort of procedure for finding
out if it's recoverable or not. If what they suggest does not work,
I'll try the above.

Thanks again!

You were probably looking at the upgrade option to buy another
drive at reduced price off the WDC online store price. Did you
attempt to get an on-line RMA for the drive?

 

[Twayne]

I haven't been following this thread, but since you mentioned it's NTFS,
have you tried doing a fixMBR and bootfix?

They have to be done from the Recovery Console and I used them
successfully on an external drive that quit with something similar to
your situation. Here's a link with some brief instructions:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/7445729/Fix-MBR-or-Boot-XP-Boot

Run fixmbr first. Restart and see what happens. It might be enough to
get you going. I know; bootfix sounds irrelevant but it seems to help.
I know you aren't having a boot problem, but if that doesn't help,
try running bootfix. Somehow, it sets something in the system area disk
sectors that helps.

Other relative links:
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/fixtheproblem/ht/repairmbr.htm

HTH,

Twayne

 

[JuanAdams]

THANKS MUCH to ALL for the info and suggestions.

Just a bit more info:
Yes, I do want the data. And I would never use the drive again, even
if I could recover the data; I would feel I could not trust it.

I had formatted it to NTFS when I began using it as all my drives are
NTFS. Just f.y.i..

I will try some of the suggestions you guys gave. Thanks!

As to the warranty info I got that from wdc.com, W.D.'s warranty web
site. While it is warrantied for 3 years, as I pointed out, that
warranty is for all practical purposes worthless because all they do
is offer you a replacement drive (I don't think it said it was
rebuilt, so I assume it must be a new one) at a price that his higher
than what you can buy one for at a good store.

According to the warranty paper that came with it (I just found it) it
does say that I can call WD on a one-issue basis for free, so unless I
called them before (which I am pretty sure I did not -  I have one
other WD drive so I am not positive) then I should be able to call
them and they can lead me through some sort of procedure for finding
out if it's recoverable or not. If what they suggest does not work,
I'll try the above.

Thanks again!

You were probably looking at the upgrade option to buy another
drive at reduced price off the WDC online store price.  Did you
attempt to get an on-line RMA for the drive?

Yes, you are right and I apologize for saying that WD does not back up
their warranty. All I can say is that if you go to their site to see
about replacing your drive you are mislead to this update deal. Their
site was not clear and it appears indeed that this is the deal they
are offering you if you have a bad drive.

Anyway, yes I did contact WD. The first day I got a native English
speaker who seemed to think he could help me revive my drive. But when
he had me plug my drive into the back of my tower instead of the front
(where it had always been working fine) I moved my monitor cable which
apparently has a short in it and my monitor went out. I had to hang up
because it took me an hour and a half to get my monitor up and running
again.

Then the next day when I called WD back again, I got an Indian who
clearly had no clue what to suggest in terms of fixing my drive. So I
asked for a supervisor and got another Indian who also had no clue and
told me my drive is toast and there's nothing they can do to suggest
fixing it except for me to do a google search. "Thanks!" Very wise and
helpful advice from their Indian tech support team! (not)

They did at that time, however, offer to replace my drive if I mail it
to them, with a new refurbished WD drive.

My plan now is to try some of the above ways of getting it to work
again, then send it back to them as a bad drive and if they send me a
new one, I'll sell it and buy a Maxtor or some other brand of drive.

I'll update you here on whether I succeed or not. Thanks for more
advice and ideas.

 

[JuanAdams]

I haven't been following this thread, but since you mentioned it's NTFS,
have you tried doing a fixMBR and bootfix?

They have to be done from the Recovery Console and I used them
successfully on an external drive that quit with something similar to
your situation.  Here's a link with some brief instructions:http://www.scribd.com/doc/7445729/Fix-MBR-or-Boot-XP-Boot

Run fixmbr first.  Restart and see what happens.  It might be enough to
get you going. I know; bootfix sounds irrelevant but it seems to help.
   I know you aren't having a boot problem, but if that doesn't help,
try running bootfix.  Somehow, it sets something in the system area disk
sectors that helps.

Other relative links:http://pcsupport.about.com/od/fixtheproblem/ht/repairmbr.htm

HTH,

Twayne

Hi,
I'm not clear on what you are saying.
Are you saying I should repair my C drive XP boot record via the
Recovery disc? Or do you mean somehow use the Recovery disc to fix the
external drive?
Is there any danger in running this bootfix thing on my c drive?

Thanks.

 

[Randem]

My suggestion is to use testdisk on the Linux System Recovery CD to recover
the partition if the drive works then run Chkdsk /f to fix the file system.
If your drive functions this should do the trick.

BTW: From what I understand you have your backup drive attached to the
computer all the time? Why?

--
Randem Systems
Your Installation Specialist
The Top Inno Setup Script Generator
http://www.randem.com/innoscript.html
Disk Read Error Press Ctl+Alt+Del to Restart
http://www.randem.com/discus/messages/9402/9406.html?1236319938

 

[JuanAdams]

My suggestion is to use testdisk on the Linux System Recovery CD to recover
the partition if the drive works then run Chkdsk /f to fix the file system.
If your drive functions this should do the trick.

BTW: From what I understand you have your backup drive attached to the
computer all the time? Why?

Linux System Recover cd? I'm using XP... Sorry, but I'm not following
you, your suggestions are going over my head. I get everything except
using a Linux Recovery CD...

As to why I kept the back up drive connected all the time, the main
answer is that it's a bit of a hassle to plug it in and wait for it to
come up each time before accessing it; and 2) I have heard many say
that it's better to just keep it running as opposed to keep turning it
off and on. I guess you're saying it's best to turn it off and on.

 

[Lil' Dave]

THANKS MUCH to ALL for the info and suggestions.

Just a bit more info:
Yes, I do want the data. And I would never use the drive again, even
if I could recover the data; I would feel I could not trust it.

I had formatted it to NTFS when I began using it as all my drives are
NTFS. Just f.y.i..

I will try some of the suggestions you guys gave. Thanks!

As to the warranty info I got that from wdc.com, W.D.'s warranty web
site. While it is warrantied for 3 years, as I pointed out, that
warranty is for all practical purposes worthless because all they do
is offer you a replacement drive (I don't think it said it was
rebuilt, so I assume it must be a new one) at a price that his higher
than what you can buy one for at a good store.

According to the warranty paper that came with it (I just found it) it
does say that I can call WD on a one-issue basis for free, so unless I
called them before (which I am pretty sure I did not - I have one
other WD drive so I am not positive) then I should be able to call
them and they can lead me through some sort of procedure for finding
out if it's recoverable or not. If what they suggest does not work,
I'll try the above.

Thanks again!

You were probably looking at the upgrade option to buy another
drive at reduced price off the WDC online store price. Did you
attempt to get an on-line RMA for the drive?

Yes, you are right and I apologize for saying that WD does not back up
their warranty. All I can say is that if you go to their site to see
about replacing your drive you are mislead to this update deal. Their
site was not clear and it appears indeed that this is the deal they
are offering you if you have a bad drive.

Anyway, yes I did contact WD. The first day I got a native English
speaker who seemed to think he could help me revive my drive. But when
he had me plug my drive into the back of my tower instead of the front
(where it had always been working fine) I moved my monitor cable which
apparently has a short in it and my monitor went out. I had to hang up
because it took me an hour and a half to get my monitor up and running
again.

Then the next day when I called WD back again, I got an Indian who
clearly had no clue what to suggest in terms of fixing my drive. So I
asked for a supervisor and got another Indian who also had no clue and
told me my drive is toast and there's nothing they can do to suggest
fixing it except for me to do a google search. "Thanks!" Very wise and
helpful advice from their Indian tech support team! (not)

They did at that time, however, offer to replace my drive if I mail it
to them, with a new refurbished WD drive.

My plan now is to try some of the above ways of getting it to work
again, then send it back to them as a bad drive and if they send me a
new one, I'll sell it and buy a Maxtor or some other brand of drive.

I'll update you here on whether I succeed or not. Thanks for more
advice and ideas.
------------

(above it what I'm replying to)

You still don't seem to understand about waranties and time frames, your
data on a hard drive turned in for a replacement and so forth. Makes no
difference WD or whatever the make.