I own all of the CDs. I didn't back up the drive because I'd have to buy another hard drive for 200 gbs of music. Oh well!...
Could you clarify one thing though, you're saying the drive failed but my computer says it's healthy when I look at it in the device manager. It's just RAW now--the NTFS formatting has disappeared. My computer is telling me I need to format the disk--which I don't want to do because then I'll really lose all of these files. So if the computer can now see the disk as unformatted is it still bad? Or, is there any way to recover the files?
When I talk to Maxtor, do I ask for a replacement hard drive? I bought this One Touch from Dell on Jan. 26, 2005 and they're telling me they're not responsible for replacing the drive--they're just the middleman.
I'm sorry, I should clarify something. I re-read my post and its not clear. Last night, I got the I/O error when I first tried to look at the external hard drive. Then I started uninstalling it and reinstalling it, etc. and finally my computer was able to see it again. Except now it's RAW instead of formatted. I know it wasn't really wiped, so is there a way to get these files back?
Thanks for all of your help! I have learned a lot from your postings on this forum. I did want to let you know that since I was facing more than 100 hours of work re-ripping all of my music CDs to my computer I was relentless in trying to find a solution to my problem.
I did talk to Maxtor and they agreed that the hard drive is bad. They're sending me a replacement. (I wish I could pick a different brand--but my other Maxtor is older and has been just fine--so I'm trying to be optimistic.) Anyway Maxtor tech support recommended formatting backup hard drives with no primary partition--only an extended partition. By doing this Windows XP doesn't try to look for an operating system, thus reducing the number of I/O tasks on the hard drive. Also he told me there are more problems with the drive when it's hooked up to the computer via the USB 2 jack. Apparently, Windows does something with USB perpherials more frequently than those on Firewire jacks. So by using Firewire there's less of a chance of getting a hang during an I/O operation and causing the hard drive to fail. Go figure. I sort of believe this because my older Maxtor is hooked up via Firewire and the newer problematic one was connected via USB 2 (it helped me know which was which in my device manager). I had two failures of the USB2 drive in the past two months. The first time, I figured it was my fault so I reformatted the drive and reloaded all of my music. Since this happened again less than a month after I got everything reloaded, I was more convinced that the problem was in the drive.
Anyway to make a long story short there is a way to get files off a drive that shows up as RAW in the disk manager. I found a program called "Recover My Files". You can download and run it. You only have to pay for it if it can actually recover files and you want to save them. I was able to get back approx. 90% of my music files using this program! It was time consuming work, but the program only cost $67 (a small fraction of what a data recovery service would charge) and it saved me hours and hours of my time.
I have the same problem with the same drive. I just tried to access some files on the ex-h/d and got the same error message. The ironic thing is i was accessing them so i could back the files up on to DVD-RW's. Timings impeccable...
Maxtor are a great help, check the cables, try a different usb socket etc. Obviously none of this helps one bit.
From the various forums ive seen this seems to affect the whole drive. My problem is just on three folders which contain several hundred tiff / jpg images from my digital camera.
So i cant understand why some of it works and some doesnt.
The only thing i ran was a recommended third party defragmenter. But again all the other drives on the computer and ex-h/d work fine.
My guess is that these files are stored in a bad sector on the drive. I couldn't recover my mp3 files that were around the bad sector. But, before you give up, try the "Recover My Files" program to see if it can find your missing jpegs. You can get the program here:
fireberd
9 Legend
•
33.4K Posts
0
July 1st, 2005 09:00
From your description and the fact you have two USB drives and the other one doesn't have a problem it pretty well says it's the drive, not the PC.
Whether it's the case and connection/cable or whether it's the physical drive??? Drives to fail, they do lose format, etc. That's why we back up data.
ejn63
9 Legend
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87.5K Posts
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July 1st, 2005 10:00
If you don't, contact a data recovery service and prepare for a big bill.
samdogmom
1 Rookie
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26 Posts
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July 1st, 2005 11:00
I own all of the CDs. I didn't back up the drive because I'd have to buy another hard drive for 200 gbs of music. Oh well!...
Could you clarify one thing though, you're saying the drive failed but my computer says it's healthy when I look at it in the device manager. It's just RAW now--the NTFS formatting has disappeared. My computer is telling me I need to format the disk--which I don't want to do because then I'll really lose all of these files. So if the computer can now see the disk as unformatted is it still bad? Or, is there any way to recover the files?
When I talk to Maxtor, do I ask for a replacement hard drive? I bought this One Touch from Dell on Jan. 26, 2005 and they're telling me they're not responsible for replacing the drive--they're just the middleman.
samdogmom
1 Rookie
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26 Posts
0
July 1st, 2005 12:00
fireberd
9 Legend
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33.4K Posts
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July 1st, 2005 16:00
samdogmom
1 Rookie
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26 Posts
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July 2nd, 2005 14:00
Thanks for all of your help! I have learned a lot from your postings on this forum. I did want to let you know that since I was facing more than 100 hours of work re-ripping all of my music CDs to my computer I was relentless in trying to find a solution to my problem.
I did talk to Maxtor and they agreed that the hard drive is bad. They're sending me a replacement. (I wish I could pick a different brand--but my other Maxtor is older and has been just fine--so I'm trying to be optimistic.) Anyway Maxtor tech support recommended formatting backup hard drives with no primary partition--only an extended partition. By doing this Windows XP doesn't try to look for an operating system, thus reducing the number of I/O tasks on the hard drive. Also he told me there are more problems with the drive when it's hooked up to the computer via the USB 2 jack. Apparently, Windows does something with USB perpherials more frequently than those on Firewire jacks. So by using Firewire there's less of a chance of getting a hang during an I/O operation and causing the hard drive to fail. Go figure. I sort of believe this because my older Maxtor is hooked up via Firewire and the newer problematic one was connected via USB 2 (it helped me know which was which in my device manager). I had two failures of the USB2 drive in the past two months. The first time, I figured it was my fault so I reformatted the drive and reloaded all of my music. Since this happened again less than a month after I got everything reloaded, I was more convinced that the problem was in the drive.
Anyway to make a long story short there is a way to get files off a drive that shows up as RAW in the disk manager. I found a program called "Recover My Files". You can download and run it. You only have to pay for it if it can actually recover files and you want to save them. I was able to get back approx. 90% of my music files using this program! It was time consuming work, but the program only cost $67 (a small fraction of what a data recovery service would charge) and it saved me hours and hours of my time.
pmilne
1 Message
0
July 14th, 2005 10:00
Maxtor are a great help, check the cables, try a different usb socket etc. Obviously none of this helps one bit.
From the various forums ive seen this seems to affect the whole drive. My problem is just on three folders which contain several hundred tiff / jpg images from my digital camera.
So i cant understand why some of it works and some doesnt.
The only thing i ran was a recommended third party defragmenter. But again all the other drives on the computer and ex-h/d work fine.
Dilemmas
samdogmom
1 Rookie
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26 Posts
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July 14th, 2005 12:00
My guess is that these files are stored in a bad sector on the drive. I couldn't recover my mp3 files that were around the bad sector. But, before you give up, try the "Recover My Files" program to see if it can find your missing jpegs. You can get the program here:
http://www.recovermyfiles.com/. I used the fast format recover option. Good luck--I hope you can get back your photos!