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HDD became RAW... only it didn't.

tria1999GR

Good morning! A couple days ago my PC fell to its side (was on the floor) and shut down. Not the first time it happened (3-4 times in total over 6 years, I think), but this time a problem occurred.

 

I have an 120 GB SSD that has Windows on it and two 1 TB HDDs. HDD1 is older and I bought it used a few years ago, kind of slow but worked fine. After I turned my PC back on it would seem that HDD1 would freeze my win explorer and then I would get the symptoms of a RAW drive while the files and folders, in many cases, were visible or even accessible (e.g. a .txt I could open). CHKDSK says it's RAW, but it is partially accessible (a).
Here is the dumber part: I changed the SATA cable slot on my Mobo and the drive seemed to work (b). Some errors were found, but I used the repair tool. Seemed to work fine. Then the above (a) happened again. I changed the SATA slot, drive went to (b) and then to (a) again.

 

This shows that this is not some classic RAW type error, it is probably something that confuses the OS (Win 10).

 

So far I tried:
1. changing SATA slots

2. changing SATA cable

3. CHKDSK when functional

and the results were the above.

I will buy a backup external HDD and back up the files ( I need one anyway), if I can, while it is at a semi-functional state. Other than formatting the drive, is there anything else I can do?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Edit: Added the image from CrystalDiskInfo:
 

index.png

Edited by tria1999GR
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30 minutes ago, tria1999GR said:

(3-4 times in total over 6 years, I think), but this time a problem occurred.

This is not healthy for the machine. Just saying. HDD are mechanical in nature and can take pysical damage. 

 

31 minutes ago, tria1999GR said:

Other than formatting the drive, is there anything else I can do?

Id try a Linux Live CD distro like Ubuntu. You can generally make a bootable USB drive with Ubuntu on it. See if it can mount the drive, if it can then pull the data off. After that, you might want to use some like Crystal Disk Info I think, and it should be able to pull smart data to see the drives health. Id advise you do that, that drive could be on its way out. 

I just want to sit back and watch the world burn. 

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3 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

 

Id try a Linux Live CD distro like Ubuntu. You can generally make a bootable USB drive with Ubuntu on it. See if it can mount the drive, if it can then pull the data off. After that, you might want to use some like Crystal Disk Info I think, and it should be able to pull smart data to see the drives health. Id advise you do that, that drive could be on its way out. 

The OS works fine, do I need Linux specifically?

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Just now, tria1999GR said:

The OS works fine, do I need Linux specifically?

easier to find free tools to work with, you don't have to install on a drive if you have a large enough usb you could just use that to boot linux off of

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9 hours ago, tria1999GR said:

The OS works fine, do I need Linux specifically?

You beleive the OS works fine, that doent mean it does. A Live CD cuts out the fact that Windows could be borked. You have indicated that Windows has an issue reading the drive as well. Linux might be able to read it no issues. Id try it at least and see the results. If you dont what to try it you might not be able to recover your data. Eaither way you probably caused pysical damage to the drive, Hard drives dont like being dropped and thats essentialy what you did. 

I just want to sit back and watch the world burn. 

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6 hours ago, Donut417 said:

You beleive the OS works fine, that doent mean it does. A Live CD cuts out the fact that Windows could be borked. You have indicated that Windows has an issue reading the drive as well. Linux might be able to read it no issues. Id try it at least and see the results. If you dont what to try it you might not be able to recover your data. Eaither way you probably caused pysical damage to the drive, Hard drives dont like being dropped and thats essentialy what you did. 

In that case I will have to buy a USB drive as well (not gonna buy CDs), not hard and I could use one anyway. I also added the image from CDI on the original post.

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52 minutes ago, tria1999GR said:

In that case I will have to buy a USB drive as well (not gonna buy CDs), not hard and I could use one anyway. I also added the image from CDI on the original post.

Yeah I’d say your drive is on its way out. 

I just want to sit back and watch the world burn. 

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