[SOLVED] Western Digital Harddrive problem

jayrod12 · Sep 9, 2013

Hey all,

So it appears as though my laptop harddrive is dead. It was continuously rebooting while trying to start windows xp, both safe mode and standard.

I took the harddrive out of the laptop and plugged it into my desktop running windows 7.

I ran testdisk and it spit back that the boot sector was bad.

I'm running seatools on it now. It passed the smart test and the short generic. Currently running the long generic.

It shows up in disk managment but not in my computer. I want to try and pull a couple of the files off of it before I try formatting it. But because I can't see it in my computer I can't seem to browse the harddrive. I also tried using one of those boxes that converts it to a usb interface however when I plug that in it finds the drive as a cd rom and won't let me do anything without formatting the drive (which is kind of counterproductive considering what I want to do).

Where am I going wrong in trying to access the files on the drive?

jayrod12 · Sep 9, 2013

And the long generic failed.

Wrench97 · Sep 9, 2013

Does it show up in disk management as formatted or unformatted space?
I'm thinking maybe the partition table along with the MBR may be corrupt.
If that's the case something like the free program Test Disk may be of use> TestDisk Download - CGSecurity

jayrod12 · Sep 9, 2013

disk management is saying it's 149.05 GB Unallocated. so I'm assuming that means unformatted?

I ran the testdisk partition detection and like i said earlier it spit out that the boot sector was corrupt (or broken, something like that)

I used the seagate file recovery demo and it successfully found a bunch of the files I wanted to save, however since it was the demo I couldn't copy them.

Before I go and pay for the full version of their software, what dangers do I run in copying files from this harddrive if there are actually issues with the drive?

Wrench97 · Sep 9, 2013

The only issues are the more you use the drive the the worse it'll usually get, and if the drive was going bad when the files were written they may be corrupt.

jayrod12 · Sep 9, 2013

Great thanks,

Is there a test that can be run on the files that I recover to check whether they're corrupted or not?

And once I'm done recovering files, is the hard drive of any use? I'm assuming only as a paperweight but maybe there is a way to be able to reuse it.

Wrench97 · Sep 9, 2013

Paper Weight or Door Stop other then that it's trash.

Only way I know to test is to open the files.

Deek · Sep 10, 2013

Sector 0 is the only one that cannot be remapped, I't a paper weight. However, even with a bad sector 0, you should be able to see the data on the drive unless the defect grew beyond sector 0 and corrupted the MFT.

I suggest putting the drive in a second PC or an external enclosure and see if you can see the data. If not, run a chkdsk /r on the drive, or Spinrite if you have it. At this point, how important is getting to the data on the drive? I am optimistic a chkdsk will get you to a point where you can at least see and recover your critical data.

Deek

jayrod12 · Sep 10, 2013

I've successfully retrieved the files I want, none of them so far appear to be corrupt.

I did have the drive hooked up to a second computer and still could not see the drive except in disk management as unallocated. Either way seagate's file recovery program worked slick to get the files off.

Trying to decide if I turn it into a piece of abstract art. Not really but sounds fun.

Wrench97 · Sep 10, 2013

Good to hear it worked out for you :)

Deek · Sep 10, 2013

Modern art you say...check this:

Consists of almost 400 old hard drives, the whole left side powers up and spins the platters when you push a secret button...It's noisy as hell, but fun!

jayrod12 · Sep 10, 2013

Deek said:
Modern art you say...check this:

View attachment 5244

Consists of almost 400 old hard drives, the whole left side powers up and spins the platters when you push a secret button...It's noisy as hell, but fun!

That is awesome!

Search

Search

[SOLVED] Western Digital Harddrive problem

jayrod12

Well-known member

jayrod12

Well-known member

Wrench97

Administrator, Hardware Expert

jayrod12

Well-known member

Wrench97

Administrator, Hardware Expert

jayrod12

Well-known member

Wrench97

Administrator, Hardware Expert

Deek

Well-known member

jayrod12

Well-known member

Wrench97

Administrator, Hardware Expert

Deek

Well-known member

jayrod12

Well-known member