External HD suddenly unallocated, analysis hangs at 99%

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cqms
Posts: 5
Joined: 15 Jan 2022, 17:23

External HD suddenly unallocated, analysis hangs at 99%

#1 Post by cqms »

Woke up this AM and found that one of my external HDs had suddenly disappeared. Drive shows up in Disk Management, but partitions are gone and Win 10 (64) thinks there's no data/drive on the disk. Any program I use to examine the disk (device manager, SeaTools, etc.) does not see the drive label ie "ST1000LX015-1U7172", but rather "TO Exter nal USB 3.0 SCSI Disk Device".

Seatools passes all tests with the exception of the long generic, passed Minitools Partition Wizard surface test with no issues.

Did some looking around, and confirmed disk and usb drivers are up to date, and usb ports are good. Drive was working just fine last night. This disk is a 1 TB Seagate Barracuda, formatted NTFS with two non-bootable partitions (drives), one about 90 GB and the other about 800GB.

Stumbled onto this program, Testdisk confirms that the partitions are still there, but when I do the quick analysis it hangs at 99% as follows:

Analyse cylinder 121601/121600: 99% MS Data 264192 1782024191 1781760000 [DATA 2]
MS Data 1610526721 1782024192 171497472
MS Data 1782024192 1953521663 171497472 [DATA 3]

I can see that there is an overlapping partition here, but since the analysis hangs it's hard to know how to proceed. At one point I got the point in the documentation where you do the partition selection, (I think I pressed and changed the DATA partitions to P from D, but if I tried to change the middle overlapping partition to P is gave me a "bad" message. So I just changed the DATA ones and registered the partition table (write) and then restarted as the documentation indicated. Restarted my computer, and no change.

I'd attach my log (I've been just choosing "append" every time I try something), but I'm not sure how!

Thanks for your help, it's much appreciated.

recuperation
Posts: 2720
Joined: 04 Jan 2019, 09:48
Location: Hannover, Deutschland (Germany, Allemagne)

Re: External HD suddenly unallocated, analysis hangs at 99%

#2 Post by recuperation »

Please attach your smartmontools log file to your next posting.

Read:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=10910

It might be necessary to duplicate the drive as described in the manual before rerunning Testdisk, the log file should tell.

cqms
Posts: 5
Joined: 15 Jan 2022, 17:23

Re: External HD suddenly unallocated, analysis hangs at 99%

#3 Post by cqms »

Ok, after a busy week I got back to this, but I can't get the smartctl command to work. I did the smartctl --scan command to ID my drives (since there is no drive letter assignment for the disk I'm having issues with), and it gave me the fol:

C:\Program Files\smartmontools\bin>smartctl --scan
/dev/sda -d ata # /dev/sda, ATA device
/dev/sdb -d sat # /dev/sdb [SAT], ATA device

The second one is the drive I'm working on, so I tried the following:

C:\Program Files\smartmontools\bin>smartctl -a /dev/sdb > myreport.txt
Access is denied.

I suspect this is because the program is trying to write to my system drive, but before I move the program to my other partition, I tried to just do it without the output log, and got the following:

C:\Program Files\smartmontools\bin>smartctl -a /dev/sdb
smartctl 7.2 2020-12-30 r5155 [x86_64-w64-mingw32-w10-b19043] (sf-7.2-1)
Copyright (C) 2002-20, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

Smartctl open device: /dev/sdb [SAT] failed: \\.\PhysicalDrive1: Open failed, Error=5

Not too sure where to proceed from here, tbh.

recuperation
Posts: 2720
Joined: 04 Jan 2019, 09:48
Location: Hannover, Deutschland (Germany, Allemagne)

Re: External HD suddenly unallocated, analysis hangs at 99%

#4 Post by recuperation »

cqms wrote: 22 Jan 2022, 18:38 Ok, after a busy week I got back to this, but I can't get the smartctl command to work. I did the smartctl --scan command to ID my drives (since there is no drive letter assignment for the disk I'm having issues with)
Drive letters are referring to partitions or volumes, not drives. Unfortunately the common expression is "drive letter" and not "partition letter".
I updated my short posting regarding the use of smartmontools. Please read it again. If this is not understandable, please complain and state what is incomprehensible.
, and it gave me the fol:

C:\Program Files\smartmontools\bin>smartctl --scan
/dev/sda -d ata # /dev/sda, ATA device
/dev/sdb -d sat # /dev/sdb [SAT], ATA device

The second one is the drive I'm working on, so I tried the following:

C:\Program Files\smartmontools\bin>smartctl -a /dev/sdb > myreport.txt
Access is denied.
You might put a "sudo" in front of your command.

I suspect this is because the program is trying to write to my system drive, but before I move the program to my other partition, I tried to just do it without the output log, and got the following:

C:\Program Files\smartmontools\bin>smartctl -a /dev/sdb
smartctl 7.2 2020-12-30 r5155 [x86_64-w64-mingw32-w10-b19043] (sf-7.2-1)
Copyright (C) 2002-20, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

Smartctl open device: /dev/sdb [SAT] failed: \\.\PhysicalDrive1: Open failed, Error=5

Not too sure where to proceed from here, tbh.

cqms
Posts: 5
Joined: 15 Jan 2022, 17:23

Re: External HD suddenly unallocated, analysis hangs at 99%

#5 Post by cqms »

myreport.txt
(6.2 KiB) Downloaded 195 times
Drive letters are referring to partitions or volumes, not drives. Unfortunately the common expression is "drive letter" and not "partition letter".
I updated my short posting regarding the use of smartmontools. Please read it again. If this is not understandable, please complain and state what is incomprehensible.
Yes, although it took me a while to figure out the syntax, I did get the correct disk identified.

Turns out the culprit was not running it with admin privileges.

Please find the log attached.

On the one hand, it doesn't seem to be actually failing any errors (that I can tell, I'm certainly no expert), although it seems to be on its last legs, even without the refusal to appear as a partitioned disk.

Is there any chance of saving the disk, or should I just be looking at recovery? Or is it too soon to tell?
Thanks for the help, it's much appreciated.

recuperation
Posts: 2720
Joined: 04 Jan 2019, 09:48
Location: Hannover, Deutschland (Germany, Allemagne)

Re: External HD suddenly unallocated, analysis hangs at 99%

#6 Post by recuperation »

What do you mean by "saving the disk"?

For repairs of your individual disk ask a professional recovery lab for quotes.
Hint: Already the price to diagnose your disk will exceed the price of buying a new one.

I see unsual figures I am unable to explain for the following attributes:

ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000f 081 064 006 Pre-fail Always - 119378151
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0003 099 098 000 Pre-fail Always - 0
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 052 052 020 Old_age Always - 49211 high figure compared to power cycle count maybe due to the driving falling asleep to early
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 036 Pre-fail Always - 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000f 080 060 045 Pre-fail Always - 105298787 high rate, could be a combined attribute
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 067 067 000 Old_age Always - 29620 (189 131 0)
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 099 099 020 Old_age Always - 1310
188 Command_Timeout 0x0032 100 001 000 Old_age Always - 3092424032255 strangely high figure
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022 085 041 040 Old_age Always - 15 (Min/Max 12/15)
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 482 Out of 1310 power cycles you shut down your system 482 times incorrectly
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 071 071 000 Old_age Always - 59605
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 015 059 000 Old_age Always - 15 (0 11 0 0 0) strange figures, are you operating your disk in Siberia or Antarticta?
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0010 100 100 000 Old_age Offline - 0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x003e 200 001 000 Old_age Always - 812983 strangely high figure
240 Head_Flying_Hours 0x0000 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 21834h+49m+55.403s

Duplicate the drive as described in the manual. Although it has no pending sectors some figures appear to be pretty unusual.
Testdisk should not hang when using a healthy drive.

cqms
Posts: 5
Joined: 15 Jan 2022, 17:23

Re: External HD suddenly unallocated, analysis hangs at 99%

#7 Post by cqms »

I basically mean restoring the partitions and using the disk normally.

I certainly don't know enough to comment on the weird values. While I do live in Canada, I generally don't compute outdoors!

The power off retract count also seems very high in terms of ratio. I do occasionally have crashes, but certainly not 1/3 of the time, and I am generally diligent about powering down my system properly.

Forgive my ignorance, but when you refer to duplicating the drive per the manual, are you referring to the ddrescue process outlined in Ch 16 of the testdisk doc? Once I've duplicated the disk, is the intent that I run testdisk on the duplicated disk in order to restore the partitions, and then duplicate it back to the original disk, presumably with the partitions restored and the disk usable? Just trying to get a handle on the overall process.

Thanks again

Christian Knudsen

recuperation
Posts: 2720
Joined: 04 Jan 2019, 09:48
Location: Hannover, Deutschland (Germany, Allemagne)

Re: External HD suddenly unallocated, analysis hangs at 99%

#8 Post by recuperation »

cqms wrote: 27 Jan 2022, 03:15 I basically mean restoring the partitions and using the disk normally.

I certainly don't know enough to comment on the weird values. While I do live in Canada, I generally don't compute outdoors!
I was joking about your location because the maximum recorded temperature of your drive was so low. I expecte it to be at least 35°C depending on your cooling setup. The range of this forum is astounding. There is a google study on drive failures. If I remember corretly your temperature favors failures - should be at least 10 Kelvin higher.

The power off retract count also seems very high in terms of ratio. I do occasionally have crashes, but certainly not 1/3 of the time, and I am generally diligent about powering down my system properly.

Forgive my ignorance, but when you refer to duplicating the drive per the manual, are you referring to the ddrescue process outlined in Ch 16 of the testdisk doc?
Yes.
Once I've duplicated the disk, is the intent that I run testdisk on the duplicated disk in order to restore the partitions, and then duplicate it back to the original disk, presumably with the partitions restored and the disk usable? Just trying to get a handle on the overall process.
Once the duplicate is ready you restart Testdisk. Use the "p"-key to see if Testdisk lists readable content. If that fails continue with deep search and check the shown partitions. If no content is visible for you, try other recovery software (that will take into account remains of metadata) or use the Armageddon tool Photorec. You will in most cases loose metadata information like file names and folder structure and fragmentation will decrease your recovery success.
Post your Testdisk logfile.

As for "repair" overlapping partitions are illegal. You only had two partitions. Just setting every partition to "primary" resulting in three partitions where you had just two plus an overlapping fault cannot be the solution for your problem.
People always want to have their drives "repaired". Recovery is typically about recovering from the faulty candidate to a healthy one.

With regards to your German name I wonder why you did not use the German forum.

cqms
Posts: 5
Joined: 15 Jan 2022, 17:23

Re: External HD suddenly unallocated, analysis hangs at 99%

#9 Post by cqms »

I'll give it a shot this weekend when I have a few minutes, and see how it goes. The drive is still warrantied, so beyond data recovery (and I did have key parts of it backed up) it's more of an inconvenience than a disaster.

I've never considered that a drive being too cool could result in failure - interesting!

I'm curious as to how the overlapping fault came to be and whether this is the source of the disk dysfunction. If I set the original 2 to primary and just ignore the overlap will that have any meaningful effect? Guess I'll find out.

It's a Danish name - My dad's family emigrated to Canada after the war. I do have some German, but not enough to deal with technical topics such as this. Parse basic meanings from text and order coffee is about my fluency level. Funny enough, I have no Danish whatsoever.

Thanks again,

Christian

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