Possible hard drive failure - what are my options?

An external hard drive I had hooked up to my Synology NAS suddenly stopped showing up on the dashboard. 

I have managed to get the drive to mount twice in Parted Magic 2024_05_02 (with a reboot inbetween), but it doesn't hang around for long.

I've managed to get it to appear in Windows 11 2-3 times and can see the top level folder structure, but it also doesn't hang around for long. I've tried running Error Checking on it but that just caused the drive to disappear after a minute or so - the green bar got most of the way along.

More info:

It's been very sunny recently where I am in the UK and the room that the Synology and various external drives were in has no doubt been getting pretty toasty. Might the heat have done something?

The drive is not making any funky noises - in fact, it sounds pretty normal (to a relative layman)

The drive does not show at all on my Mac

The system log in Windows after the Error Checking recommended trying "offline checking" (?)

Does anybody have an idea what is going on here and what my options might be for recovery at this point?

Is there something I can do to force the mount state to remain in Parted Magic long enough for me to copy some files off? If I have to lose the data on this drive it's not a huge deal but it will be a pain in the bum...

A bit of a noob and have probably left off some vital info, so let me know what else I can tell you!

Thanks in advance.

Edited by bluesky2024, 26 June 2024 - 04:32 PM.

It is not clear if you tried Parted Magic while connected to your NAS or directly to your computer.My first step would be to connect it directly to the computer and see if yu can accessit. If you can then the immediate next step would be to copy the data off it to another drive.

If this doesn't work then in Windows then I would try using Linux, sometimes Linux can read things that Windows can't. In brief, go to 'linuxmint.com' and download the Mint ISO to your computer. Then use 'Rufus' -  from here https://rufus.ie - to create a bootable USB drive, 4GB will be ample.

Once you have your bootable USB boot your computer from it and you will find your self at the Mint desktop. You will find a file manager at the left hand of the task bar. Connect your doubtful drive and see if you can read it. If you can read it then just do a straight copy of your data to some reliable location.These are fairly sketchy instructions and if you need more detail post back.

If you can't access and read it in both Windows and Linux then it is likely that your drive is dead and short of trying a specialist recovery company, which can be an expensive operation.

OH, and using Linux in this manner will not turn your computer into a Linux box, it will run entirely in RAM. Just don't click on the icon 'Install Mint' and when you re-boot Mint will be gone.

Chris Cosgrove

Thanks for the reply Chris.

Apologies for not being clear. All of the tests I mentioned were done by connecting the drive directly to the PC - I used the same PC to test it on Windows 11 and with Parted Magic.

I used Parted Magic precisely because it is a Linux based OS - would you still recommend running Linux Mint to test as well?

I was getting confused between Parted and Partition Magic !  I would have to say that if you cannot read or access the drive in both Windows and Linux then you have probably gone as far as you can. Depending on how valuable the data on this disk is you are  probably left with a data recovery service as your only option apart from writing the data off. But as I said, these services are expensive. Fifteen or so years ago a friends C:\ drive died completely and she could never be bothered to do back ups. It cost her £450 +VAT to get her data recovered, she was lucky, she got all her data back..

Chris Cosgrove

Ah that would be a shame but understandable!

Do you have any idea what might have actually happened to cause this behaviour? Did the heat fry anything? Is the file system borked? Curious to know what's happened...

I would swap out the USB cable and maybe attach it to a different computer.

Tried that one already - still no dice!

Because the drive does not stay connected for any length of time I think your only way to recover any data is from a professional recovery service but they are not cheap.

I assume that your external drive is not a normal HDD or SSD drive mounted in an external case, am I correct? If so, then the suggestion I was going to make will not work.

I was getting confused between Parted and Partition Magic !  I would have to say that if you cannot read or access the drive in both Windows and Linux then you have probably gone as far as you can. Depending on how valuable the data on this disk is you are  probably left with a data recovery service as your only option apart from writing the data off. But as I said, these services are expensive. Fifteen or so years ago a friends C:\ drive died completely and she could never be bothered to do back ups. It cost her £450 +VAT to get her data recovered, she was lucky, she got all her data back..

 

Chris Cosgrove

Do you know if she is doing backups now?

Edited by hamluis, 28 June 2024 - 01:54 PM.

I assume that your external drive is not a normal HDD or SSD drive mounted in an external case, am I correct? If so, then the suggestion I was going to make will not work.

It's a typical internal HDD (Seagate 4TB I think) drive I put into an external Icy Box enclosure myself and have been using for a good few years. The drive is arguably due a fail tbh, but hoping I can recover a few files from it before I drill a hole through it and commit it to ewaste...

The only suggestion I can make is a very long shot....take your problem HDD, wrap it in plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator for an hour. Then quickly connect it and see if it will maintain connection long enough to get your data off.

I have read experiences of users who have done this and it worked. There are a lot more who failed, but it's worth a try.

The only suggestion I can make is a very long shot....take your problem HDD, wrap it in plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator for an hour. Then quickly connect it and see if it will maintain connection long enough to get your data off.

I have read experiences of users who have done this and it worked. There are a lot more who failed, but it's worth a try.

I don't have a citation, but I've read somewhere that this puts the drive at further risk. I suggest Googling before trying it.

It could be a defective USB bridge card in the enclosure. Have you tried connecting the drive directly to a SATA port on the motherboard?

I've tried it in a separate enclosure - though admittedly not attached directly to the motherboard via SATA. I can give that a shot