Strange problem with external hdd

osaddictosaddict London, UK
edited January 2011 in Hardware
I've got a 400gb Seagate external drive which I think could have just died

I tried to save to it but got an error, suggesting the drive wasn't available, sure enough look in Computer on Win 7 and it's not listed.

I've got the drive away from the PC now and took the power and USB out so I could have a look at it.

With the drive plugged in power wise and switched on it seems okay - the blue light remains solid on the front. The problem comes when I connect it to the PC (or laptop as I'm doing to test it), basically as soon as you connect it the power light goes off on the front, if you look at Computer on the laptop it just hangs (Vista eggtimer circle thing) for a good 3-4 mins or so, then shows an icon for the drive, whilst the light IS off you can hear the drive spinning inside the caddy.

Double click on the drive icon and you get more not responding nonsense for ages (longer now, perhaps 10mins!) and eventually you get an error: F:\ Is not Accessible. The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error.

After this I tried plugging it into an XP machine (because the laptop was flat lol), same light business. First time I clicked on the drive icon I got a quick reply - 'The parameter is incorrect', I ried again and I've got the hanging nonsense I had on the Vista laptop then it tells me 'The disk in drive E: is not formatted, do you want to format it now. (Obviously I don't!)

Looking in computer manager I can see the drive - Disk 1 it just shows as 100% free. EEK.

Erm, a little help anyone? Otherwise I'm stumped... getting on the case on Google as we speak, and downloading Ubuntu Rescue Remix to try booting a live CD and seeing what that makes of it

Comments

  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited January 2011
    Get it to recognize a drive letter and try chkdsk /f. Otherwise try plugging the hard drive in internally; most times it's the enclosure that's died, not the HDD.
  • osaddictosaddict London, UK
    edited January 2011
    Well, I'd decided I needed to get the drive out, man, that was way harder than I thought. Just been in teh shed with an arsenal of tools, a tricky procedure, I've got it out enough that I can see the connections, just need to dump it in a PC now... :/
  • osaddictosaddict London, UK
    edited January 2011
    The PC I'm trying to plug it into is a low profile Dell, it doesn't seem to have any spare IDE connectors so I nicked the ones from the CD drive and plugged it in. I booted up but can't see it in My Computer? - It's got a jumper on it, I've not moved it from the place it was originally...
  • osaddictosaddict London, UK
    edited January 2011
    Edit: XP sees the drive now, however, it says it's not formatted and do I want to format it :(

    Any ideas?
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited January 2011
    Run chkdsk /f now.
  • osaddictosaddict London, UK
    edited January 2011
    how do I go about doing that? Via cmd prompt if I type in E: it tells me:

    "The volume does not contain a recognised file system. Please make sure that all required drivers are loaded and that the volume is not corrupt"

    Cheers.
  • osaddictosaddict London, UK
    edited January 2011
    In the mean time I'm trying with something called TestDisk, it detected the drive and the size correctly but then it didn't find any partitions on a quick search, it's now doing some stupid slow search a 'deep search', I fear it won't find anything either :/
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited January 2011
    Is E: the drive letter for that drive? If so, type: chkdsk e: /f. If that doesn't work, she's probably a goner. You might try a program called Recuva to get the data.
  • osaddictosaddict London, UK
    edited January 2011
    Yup, E: is the drive letter it's been assigned. The TestDisk deep search is still going, not sure what it's supposed to do when it's finished.

    Strange, the hdd isn't making any unusual sounds and quite suddenly just died.

    Would the freezer thing be worth a try?! Or is that just for drives displaying physical damage/noises?
  • osaddictosaddict London, UK
    edited January 2011
    Oh and thanks for the tips so far and the suggestion of Recuva :) I'm glad the most important stuff on the drive was on a nightly synchronisation with another drive so I have the most important stuff backed up, still a considerable amount not though :/
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