cgsecurity.org

Hi Everyone,

I have a 3TB usb 3.0 external drive that suddenly starting being detected as raw. If I click on it windows asks me to format it.

I downloaded testdisk and currently I'm running a scan that goes cylinder by cylinder. It reached 50% rather quickly, but after that it began getting read errors for every cylinder after that. Its been going very slowly like 1 hour per cylinder. The log file for test disk is up at 5.5 gbs now.

What should I do? Should I stop the scan?

Thanks,
Frozen

Ye, stops the scan and clone your disk to a new empty one using gnu ddrescue as described in
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Damaged_Hard_Disk
Once it's done, remove the old disk and use PhotoRec on the clone.

I take it from your reply you have concluded my hard disk is failing / has failed. Do you mind elaborating on how you arrived at this conclusion and also what you think went wrong? Also if possible how to prevent such failure in the future?

Thanks,
Frozen

PS: I'm working on purchasing a new drive. I don't have another one on hand. It might be a few days (black friday?) until i get a new one!