I think I ffffed up pretty bad (External HDD Problem)

[GSZX1337]

I'll try to keep this as short as possible:

I had my external hard drive hooked up to an Ubuntu laptop. I got up and the hard drive fell onto the coffee table then onto a carpeted floor. I hooked the hard drive back to the laptop and Ubuntu didn't see it. I hooked the hard drive to a Windows laptop and saw that it was installing software for it. After the Auto-Run popped up, I left. Later, I'm told that the laptop had a BSOD. I don't know whether my hard drive caused the crash or if the lappy was fucked.

I then hook it up to the Ubuntu laptop and it told me to hook it up to a Windows PC and run chkdsk. I hook the hard drive up to a different Windows PC and it showed up as E:. However, I couldn't run chkdsk on it. I hooked it back later and Windows installed software for the hard drive but after the software was installed, the hard drive wouldn't show up at all. I went into disk management and saw that it was 2TB of unallocated space, which is odd since it's only 750GB. I tried using PC Inspector to recover the data, but got an error and the drive still shows up as unallocated space.

Does anyone here have any idea what I can do? It's still under warranty, does anyone think that I should send the HD to SeaGate?

[Hobie-wan]

You might see if partition software even sees it as the correct size. They're made to live through short drops, though if it was reading or writing when it hit the floor the head might have scraped the platter. Seagate might deny a warranty claim once they look at it.

[vlame]

ew seagate, send it in.

[Rurouni_Fencer]

if it was reading or writing when it hit the floor the head might have scraped the platter. Seagate might deny a warranty claim once they look at it.

^ this.

Ever hear the term 'hard-drive crash'? It was coined because of exactly the scenario Hobie has described. Your Hard Drive is not too much unlike a CD player, in that it has spinning discs called platters that store your information into sectors on the platter discs, (like a single compact disc does.) There's a head that floats above the platter on a film of air that reads/writes information magnetically. As you can imagine - these parts are all moving: the platter spinning one way at a great speed, as well as the head, which moves according to where certain information stored needs to be pulled.
Now imagine all of this going on and all of a sudden, a laptop drop or some other sudden jolt of exterior movement happens. The head will oftentimes "crash" into the platter - resulting in a circular gash the circumference of which the head made contact with the platter - your hard drive has crashed.


Information stored within this gash, as you could imagine, would be unreadable - causing any applications dependent on those now-lost files unstable or unresponsive.


GSX, unfortunately you've learned a lesson we've all learned at some point the hard way.. As Hobie said, you might be able to salvage something, but ultimately there's nothing anybody can do, as the data is literally damaged and destroyed. Hopefully, any important files are backed up on solid state USB drives or SD cards. Solid state, if you're unfamiliar, is technology where information is not stored on moving parts like CDs or platter and head hard-drives, but media comprised of non-moving parts like a USB or SD card. (think of the difference between Nintendo cartridges and Playstation discs. NES carts rely on physical contact to read data - hence the annoying flickers and blue screens due to dust and incomplete connections. Playstation discs rely on lasers lens reading data from moving discs, and once the laser lens goes faulty - bye-bye game loading and hello load screen stalling.)
As for a warranty, Seagate will most definitely deny replacement because of a head to platter contact caused by external means.
But as it stands, you're probably going to need a new hard drive, bud.. Sorry..

[pakopako]

You can probably recover the data, maybe even continue to use the drive if the platters aren't damaged, but you're not going to be able to reuse the damaged area. In any case, you'd be better serviced with a new HDD.

All in all, I'm thinking this isn't platter damage, but rather controller damage.

If the drive-cable popped out, you might be in luck and the head (like a turntable "needle") did not come in contact with a spinning platter. The controller-card or logic board in the enclosure might be borked though. That could be covered under warranty.

[vlame]

pm me for a program you could use to get data off before you send it in.

[jeffro11]

You said you've tried the harddrive in Ubuntu and it asked you to run chkdsk. Is this by any chance a NTFS partition? You should be able to force it to mount from the terminal.

Or run "chkdsk" from linux. You will need the ntfs-3g utilities (which I assume you already and should have. Then you need to run ntfsfix

ntfsfix /dev/sdb1 (or whatever your unmounted drive is found as, mine is typically sdb if I'm only using one harddrive, but varies on distros and hardware. The 1 denotes which partition you want to "fix" It could be 2, 3, 4, 5 etc depending on what partitions you may have made.)
ntfsfix will attempt to fix the drive for you similar to chkdsk from windows. Hopefully this bit of info will help.

[Anapan]

Short answer - stick it in the freezer for awhile and get the proper software to recover the most important files. Avoid anything else but repeated file-list read attempts until you determine if it can list files as any prolonged usage risks further physical damage. Longer answer:

I've had the best luck recovering data on damaged hard-drives (usually internal dropped laptop HDs) by sticking them in a freezer for about 4 hours and then waiting for them to warm up while keeping them plugged in through USB while they warm up while constantly trying to get as much off of them as possible; Disconnecting and reconnecting as you see fit to get a file listing if you're not using recovery software to intelligently recognize files. Professional recovery is *very* expensive, so if you know what data you can't recover from backups or redownload then target recovering what's important to you (a few hours of trying different google tips can sometimes give you a few minute window of readable data to grab the important stuff while it's defrosting). I've had the most luck with with a software suite called R-studio (it recognizes all partition types including Linux specialties) when the drive's hooked up using it's native connection direct to the recovery host tower/laptop using direct wires (that sometimes requires cracking open the external shell) but don't rule out USB as a usable recovery method as one of those multi-connection cables can sometimes do better at making a usable connection than a direct hardware connection using the above mentioned disconnect/reconnect method until the drive's fully warmed up. PM me for some software - without the proper software you'll probably just get a delayed BSOD again on a windows machine and afaik windows has the best selection of low-level recovery software.

All your warranty will get is (at best) a new blank hard-drive. Any use of the harddrive risks dragging the damaged sectors/area further and/or damaging the head while it's trying to read the gouge on your HD platter.

[GSZX1337]

What Hobie and Ruroni said was exactly what I was afraid of, fucking up the platter.
Jeffro11 I tried running ntfsfix and chkdsk, but they wouldn't play nice.
Anapan, at first I thought you were trolling. But then I Googled around a bit and found at that it apparently works! I'm freezing my HD now and I'll try to get as much data off it as I can. Afterward. I'll send it to SeaGate. Hopefully, it'll have a controller issue like Pakopako suggested.

I have most of my important data stored elsewhere, now I'm mostly hoping to get the drive replaced. Now I'm considering online storage in the future when I have more valuable data. Needless to say, I feel like a real jackass.

[Rurouni_Fencer]

What Hobie and Ruroni said was exactly what I was afraid of, fucking up the platter.
Jeffro11 I tried running ntfsfix and chkdsk, but they wouldn't play nice.
Anapan, at first I thought you were trolling. But then I Googled around a bit and found at that it apparently works! I'm freezing my HD now and I'll try to get as much data off it as I can. Afterward. I'll send it to SeaGate. Hopefully, it'll have a controller issue like Pakopako suggested.

I have most of my important data stored elsewhere, now I'm mostly hoping to get the drive replaced. Now I'm considering online storage in the future when I have more valuable data. Needless to say, I feel like a real jackass.

Let us know how the freezing trick worked for you, and if any data was able to be salvaged! If so, it could be a good lesson for others who go through with this..

Also, while cloud storage is pretty awesome, it's still in it's infancy - meaning costs and security are reasonable, but not perfected yet. Don't forget about solid state drives like USB sticks and SD cards. If you need a little more memory than 16-32 GB sticks for backups - there are external solid state HDDs available, although they are pretty pricey right now.. Still, if peace of mind with regards to your data is priceless, it's probably the best route to go in which to have secure and safe physical copies of your information! Good luck, dude!