Hard Drive issues 2

[s8n]

hi again , so i got a new Hard Drive today to transfer over my files/folders from the dying Drive.


when im transferring over files the transfer will go to a crawl and kind of lock up.


is there some sort of software that can help in my situation ?

[isiolia]

I'm not sure there's anything that can force the drive to mechanically keep spinning if it's failing. Very occasionally, I have run into drives that will work fine initially, when cold, and fail as they warm up - so the ol' fridge trick can help, and just knowing what you need to grab and only doing a little at a time does as well.

If it's a matter of the drive slowing to a crawl/disconnecting, and coming back, interrupting the copy, then there are ways to counter that.

Offhand, there's Unstoppable Copier, though I haven't used it. Windows 8's file copy tends to do decently with it too, though it'll pop up a message that it couldn't copy, do you want to retry, etc...but it's better than before where it just crapped out entirely.

What I usually use, that's built into Windows now, unless you are using something pre-Vista, is robocopy (robust file copy).

It's a command-line utility, thought there's a guis out there for it. It's got a fair number of options.

What I'd suggest is:

(in an administrator command prompt)

robocopy <source> <destination> /e /r:1 /w:1 /z /log:c:\copylog.txt

If your source/destination have spaces in them, you need to use quotes.

To explain what this does - /e copies the full directory structure, including empty folders.

/r:1 specifies how many times to retry if a file can't be copied, in this case, once. You can use a higher number, or use zero. Default tries are obscenely high, so if the drive is failing, not specifying this could mean it sits there for a very long time.

/w:1 specifies wait time before trying again on a file that failed to copy, in seconds.

With both /r and /w, you can use a higher number, just keep in mind that if you have bad/unreadable files that it'll just start taking longer and longer with more retries. They can make more sense for network backups if the system is waiting for a file to no longer be in use or something.

/z is restartable mode, in case your drive conks out and comes back.

/log is optional, but if you have files that fail and you want to see which, this is the way to do it. Without directing the log information to a file, it just spits it out as it goes, and then will say at the end how many files failed to copy (if any) and how much space they accounted for. If you direct it to a log file, you can look it up later if you want. If you don't care, then don't bother with that.

[Hobie-wan]

As noted, the action of doing all that copying might be warming up the drive pushing it closer to its failure point. Having a fan blowing on it and copying in smaller chunks might help, giving it a little breather. If it is an older IDE (not SATA) drive you might force it into an older slower transfer mode which will be easier on it. Back in the Deathstar days, bumping a problematic drive from 66 to 33 speed got me through copying most of the files off a sick drive as opposed to having it constantly hang up.

[Mad_Hatter]

Can you transfer via USB 2.0?

My HDD disconnects on my laptop via Sata, not sure why. But USB 2.0 seems to work better.

[irixith]

I like to use TeraCopy in these sorts of situations, as it will skip what it can't copy and keep going with no user intervention needed. It will show you what it couldn't copy (i.e. what's on the already corrupted portion of your drive) and you can decide whether whatever it's unable to copy is important (use Unstoppable Copier mentioned above to attempt recovery) or if it's something that doesn't matter. You may find you have better luck booting your machine from a Linux or Windows Live CD, rather than booting from the failing hard drive, and attempting the copy procedure from there. My favourite in this scenario would be the Parted Magic Live CD, as it is full of data recovery tools.

HUGE NOTE: DO NOT PUT YOUR HARD DRIVE IN THE FREEZER OR THE FRIDGE. This is urban legend advice, and you will almost surely destroy any chance of recovering data on your drive if you do it. If your drive is having a thermal problem, get a fan and blow it at the highest setting on your drive while you're copying to help cool it down. If your drive is having a mechanical failure, every on/off/use of your drive is further destroying your platters. Putting the drive in a freezer/fridge will NOT HELP.

[s8n]

hi members thanks for your suggestions and help.................


ive managed to transfer about 1.2GB with TeraCopy that works better for me than Unstoppable Copier and RichCopy.


i have hit a hurdle tho , the Hard Drive now says in Win7 that i need to Format it.............


and i cant get it to do anything else , ive tried internal SATA and USB 2.0


i think its totally gone now ?

Having a fan blowing on it

my PC Case has 2 Fans for Hard Drive cooling , ive had it running like that since day one

get a fan and blow it at the highest setting

definitely got that setup running





kinda sucks tho i was about 2-3 months away from buying more HDDs to backup this 2TB drive.



at this moment im trying to download Documentaries i have lost , TeraCopy would give a error saying it cant access the folder.


also my FLAC's are all gone i couldnt save them , its going to take ages to re-rip my CD's

[irixith]

Sounds like your drive was already pretty hooped before starting this process...bummer!

[s8n]

i think it was at the medium point for severity , im lucky to get what i did off it as it was in that state

[ApolloBoy]

Y'know it's super annoying how you make paragraph-sized spaces in your messages when normal spacing will do. It makes it difficult to read your posts.