Trying to fix my HDD

How to use TestDisk to recover lost partition
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pokrishka
Posts: 3
Joined: 31 Jan 2015, 19:16

Trying to fix my HDD

#1 Post by pokrishka »

Hi guys,

Recently my PC started to work real slow, it was booting Windows 7 for a couple of minutes though I'm using SSD and many system tools like system recovery were loading extremely slow. Then I noticed one of my HDDs is down. It didn't show any free space and when I checked - it was in RAW state. It's a 3TB HDD I use solely for gaming and storing movies/music. It was the reason behind the slow system, since it was fixed when I unplugged it. So I thought, I'm always the luckiest man with HDDs, but maybe this time I can get it back to life since it's huge and expensive. I googled and found this site and this instruction:
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step

I followed it, it has found my single partition that I had on this HDD. I checked the files, they were intact on a brief look so I clicked "Write" and confirmed it. In a blink of an eye it told me that I need to reboot for changes to take effect and I clicked OK, closed TestDisk and rebooted. System shut down fast, like the speed issue got fixed, but then it just got stuck in BIOS motherboard opening screen, even before my USB mouse/keyboard are initialized (so I cannot Ctrl+Alt+Del or enter BIOS settings).

Everything works fine without this HDD so I unplugged it for the time being. Is there a chance for me to still continue to use it somehow? Maybe format it, I don't really need that data on it. Or am I f`ed for another tidy sum? I can't even check anything since when it's plugged I'm stuck in BIOS and I don't know how to plug it when PC is loaded, although I have a SATA port on the back, maybe I should get a connector? Or should forget about it and appreciate it's not my important HDD that died tonight?

Hope somebody here can help me :)
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cgrenier
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Re: Trying to fix my HDD

#2 Post by cgrenier »

Your disk probably contains bad sectors.
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Damaged_Hard_Disk
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pokrishka
Posts: 3
Joined: 31 Jan 2015, 19:16

Re: Trying to fix my HDD

#3 Post by pokrishka »

Thank you for your reply! If so, I guess I can try fix that and continue to use it for non-important files like games until it dies completely, right? I might have a cable on my parents apartment, I need to connect it somehow to get pass BIOS splash screen to do anything with it. Actually, lagging started happening when I was playing a game so it might be that it is damaged heavily, or maybe it was just that very same game that's located on the damaged sectors. I'm not really familiar with all this.
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pokrishka
Posts: 3
Joined: 31 Jan 2015, 19:16

Re: Trying to fix my HDD

#4 Post by pokrishka »

I dug my old connector and it turns out it doesn't support 3TB HDDs - it only shown it as 800GB. I tried to set SATA to hotswap and manually plug in power inside my box when Windows already loaded (I know, probably dangerous/stupid) - it shown message that drivers for the device were successfully installed and then my whole system froze. Will it be worth a try to purchase a new HDD case that support 3TB HDDs? Would be a bummer to spend money on it to find out that HDD is not usable anymore... How likable it is that HDD can still be used? If that's a question that can be answered :)
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