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Thread ID: 135886	2013-12-23 07:09:00	recover a missing hard drive partition	dugimodo (138)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
1363403	2013-12-23 07:09:00	I've lost a drive full of data I'd like to recover if possible, not critical if I have to start over but worth a bit of effort first I think. So details; I have a Vantec HX4 external USB3.0 drive enclosure with 4 hard drives in it, Drive 1 is a 4TB seagate, drives 2-4 are 2TB WD greens. Drive 2 has all of a sudden become inaccessible and shows in disk management as unformatted(RAW), the rest are still working OK. I tried CHKDSK but it fails saying drive is inaccessible, Recuva - can't read drive Test Disk, finds the partition ok and lists it as NTFS but shows no files on it, says file system is possibly corrupted. (don't really know how to use this program) I tried removing the drive from the enclosure and using it in an external USB - SATA caddy - same results So, before I resort to reformatting to see if the drive still works is there anything else I can try without getting too carried away? It's possible it's a hard drive failure but until I reformat I won't know. Also if the drive proves to be ok but the data is lost would you trust the enclosure with the remaining 3 drives ? I rebuild my PC quite often and use the external enclosure so that my media is independant of the PC and also so I can use a smaller Case because I regularly go to a LAN club. Seemed like a good Idea andhas worked for quite a while but I could go back to installing the drives in the PC. Will be a tight fit in the itx case though :)	dugimodo (138)
1363404	2013-12-23 07:36:00	Try www.easeus.com The free version allows you to recover upto 2GB, If it sees the data Ok, and its important to you, and you have more than the 2GB you can buy it to recover unlimited. The drive may be showing as RAW, but theres a very high chance the datas still there. Also if the drive proves to be ok but the data is lost would you trust the enclosure with the remaining 3 drives ? SImple answer -- ALL hard drives fail at some point, just a matter of when, never trust important data to only one location.	wainuitech (129)
1363405	2013-12-23 22:12:00	Thanks for the suggestion but it's not important enough to spend money on so I won't try the free one. Given I won't be paying for the software it doesn't matter if it works or not. Anything truly critical is backed up. I could lose every Hdd I own and not be more than inconvenienced and out of pocket, I would never store anything I couldn't replace on a hard drive alone.	dugimodo (138)
1363406	2013-12-23 22:16:00	SImple answer -- ALL hard drives fail at some point, just a matter of when, never trust important data to only one location. I think you missed the point of my question, what I was getting at is if the drive is NOT faulty then would you trust that the enclosure is ok and not the cause of the problem. I'd hate for the other 3 drives to go the same way. nothing is irreplaceable but it could cost me a lot of time.	dugimodo (138)
1363407	2013-12-23 23:43:00	I think you missed the point of my question, what I was getting at is if the drive is NOT faulty then would you trust that the enclosure is ok and not the cause of the problem. I'd hate for the other 3 drives to go the same way. nothing is irreplaceable but it could cost me a lot of time. NO I didn't miss the point, I know exactly what you are asking. What I was meaning is you cant trust ANY device, it could be Hard Drives, enclosures what ever. If someone said yes you can trust them, and then they fail shortly after was that person telling you lies ?? The answer is really HOW do they know something wont fail shortly after -- because Hard Drives and their enclosures can and do fail at any time. Lets say you have all your hard Drives in the enclosure and something goes wrong and fries both the enclosure and all Hard Drives, who could say they "knew" that it would happen ? If the HDD is tested for Bad Sectors, and all is OK with it, then it may be fine. You cant rile on the Disks SMART, as sometimes it doesn't register. What you can do, is run HDD Regenerator (http://www.dposoft.net/) through the drive, that will show you if it has any bad sectors. ( You make a bootable CD or USB drive) I use it all the time, it claims to repair them, but I wouldn't trust any drive with failing sectors that it finds. It may take a while to run through depending on the drive. I normally leave them running overnight, unless it finds bad sectors near the beginning ( which is where they more often than not will be.	wainuitech (129)
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