HDD issue (bad sectors, corrupted files)

cold one of problems be that most of programs for recovery also see HDD as 2, and NOT 3 TB HDD?

i use linux for recovery in case of a failure and linux has no issue with 2TB or larger drives and partitions. im not familiar with speedfan either, so i dunno about the compatibility of that software. as for other recovery software: just check if 2TB and more are fully supported. if it doesnt say, ask the creator.

using software that only recognizes 2TB out of 3TB will not work:

files tend to be fragmented, thus aren’t always completely located in the first 2TB. so only portions would be recovered, which is unacceptable.

i used linux live cd  ( Hiren’s BootCD)for some troubles with hdd before (hdat2 error)…

but right now it seams to me that files are in theory ok, but indexing part is corrupted… is there any tool that can fix that… rescan file by file? linux is also ok

right now i am testing drive vith easeUs data recovery…

for new situations i havent been into either, i only know google:

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=recover+ntfs+index

something is strange here… all seams fine but 99 % of files are corrupt

Test Option: QUICK TEST
Model Number: WDC WD30EFRX-68AX9N0
Unit Serial Number: WD-Deleted
Firmware Number: 80.00A80
Capacity: 2000.42 GB
SMART Status: PASS
Test Result: PASS
Test Time: 20:11:30, July 27, 2013

Test Option: EXTENDED TEST
Model Number: WDC WD30EFRX-68AX9N0
Unit Serial Number: WD-Deleted
Firmware Number: 80.00A80
Capacity: 2000.42 GB
SMART Status: PASS
Test Result: PASS
Test Time: 11:07:17, July 28, 2013

check the photo:

disk.png

this seams to be the problem

windows recognize disk as 3tb, but on some low level it is recognized as 2tb drive.

browsed the boards, but no real solution, any idea?

 tried as internal disk and in external enclousure

Have you contacted WD support? I strongly suggest that you do. I can’t explain the results you are getting, but the engineers might pick something up. You’ve certainly run tests that I would have.

I had experience with drives developing bad sectors. WD replaced the first one, and then the replacement started doing the same thing. WD replaced that one, too. I finally realized that a bad SATA cable was the cause of the problems. Once I put a new cable on, the problems stopped. Have you tried a different cable?

I don’t know if this relates in any way to what you are experiencing. If you have not, I would try a new cable. I would also run your test results by WD support.

i conntact wd support 72 hours ago and still no answer.

found out on the end what is the problem… browsed the boards, but no real answer.

in gdisk i get this error

Partition table scan:
  MBR: protective
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.

Warning! Secondary partition table overlaps the last partition by
14898564 blocks!
You will need to delete this partition or resize it in another utility.

Perhaps this would help in the “resize” department.

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php

That diagnosis looks pretty ugly. I hope you can rescue your data.

Best of luck,

k

EDIT: Here is another possibility-

http://sourceforge.net/projects/systemrescuecd/files/latest/download?source=recommended

ego2st wrote:

i conntact wd support 72 hours ago and still no answer.

found out on the end what is the problem… browsed the boards, but no real answer.

in gdisk i get this error

Partition table scan:
MBR: protective
BSD: not present
APM: not present
GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.

Warning! Secondary partition table overlaps the last partition by
14898564 blocks!
You will need to delete this partition or resize it in another utility.

That’s probably the problem right there.  If you’re using MBR at all it won’t see 3TB.  The drive has to be formatted in GPT in order to recognize 3TB in Windows.  Otherwise, you may get this kind of corruption.

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Would it be practical/possible for the OP to delete the MBR partition? I’m not sure what it means by “MBR: protective”.

See this link for discussion of MBR: protective-

http://rodsbooks.com/gdisk/hybrid.html

It is not clear from the “Partition table scan” that the OP posted, which partition is secondary, though it seems that it would be the MBR. From the linked article:

“As noted on other pages in this document, a conventional GPT disk contains a protective MBR with a single partition, of type 0xEE (EFI GPT), defined. This partition spans the entire size of the disk or 2 TiB, whichever is smaller. The intent is to keep GPT-unaware OSes and utilities from trying to modify the disk.”

What this suggests to me is that a “GPT-unaware OS (or) utility” modified the Protective MBR, or its relationship to the GPT, in some fashion. It does seem that there is a reason for the two partition schemes to cohabit on the same disk.

Kieren wrote:

Would it be practical/possible for the OP to delete the MBR partition? I’m not sure what it means by “MBR: protective”.

 

See this link for discussion of MBR: protective-

http://rodsbooks.com/gdisk/hybrid.html

 

It is not clear from the “Partition table scan” that the OP posted, which partition is secondary, though it seems that it would be the MBR. From the linked article:

 

“As noted on other pages in this document, a conventional GPT disk contains a protective MBR with a single partition, of type 0xEE (EFI GPT), defined. This partition spans the entire size of the disk or 2 TiB, whichever is smaller. The intent is to keep GPT-unaware OSes and utilities from trying to modify the disk.”

 

What this suggests to me is that a “GPT-unaware OS (or) utility” modified the Protective MBR, or its relationship to the GPT, in some fashion. It does seem that there is a reason for the two partition schemes to cohabit on the same disk.

so… i booted up from systemrescue cd, and in gparted i got

model: wd3068ax9n0

size: 1.82 TB

partition table: unrecognized

heads: 255

sectors/tracks: 63

cylinders: 243204

total sectors: 3907073134

sector size:512

now playing with test disk to search lost partiton table…

questions:

if i format disk with gpt partition table from gparted, what wil happen, will i loose all data, or (fingers crossed) will restore everything back to normal(with all data back)?

why only windows recognize disk as 3TB drive?  i remebered before even in bios all was ok, now only windows 7 (in my case) recognize disk as 3TB drive, but 99% of data is “corrupted” (all files and folders are visible but not working?

in your post you guess that for some reason mbr and gpt partition must be there, but if i only use this disk in windows 7, if i put JUST gpt will it work (i don’t care for mbr) .

ps wd support informed me to give them my phone number so they will call me, i guess that this kind of problem won’t be that easy to fix with phone call :mansad:

I’m afraid that I have a hard time sorting this out. I dug up references, but I’ll have to find time to study it more. The author at the link has a lot of material on the subject. You might try doing text searching on some of the documents for likely key words. Sorry I can’t offer more.

after scaning drive with test disk this finally camo out…

any idea how i can use this data?

TestDisk 6.13, Data Recovery Utility, November 2011
Christophe GRENIER grenier@cgsecurity.org
http://www.cgsecurity.org

Disk /dev/sdf - 2000 GB / 1863 GiB - CHS 243204 255 63

The harddisk (2000 GB / 1863 GiB) seems too small! (< 11292925 TB / 10270855 TiB
Check the harddisk size: HD jumpers settings, BIOS detection…

The following partitions can’t be recovered:
     Partition               Start        End    Size in sectors

  MS Data                   264192 5860532223 5860268032 [New Volume]
   MS Data                233582700 22056494242075226 22056494008492527 [M-X~_~_
   MS Data                529020076 7822410015532042 7822409486511966 [#" L~XM-A
   MS Data               1066098310 10588439877331821 10588438811233511

[Continue]
NTFS, 3000 GB / 2794 GiB

I’m not sure if this applies to your situation, but a search on “The harddisk (2000 GB / 1863 GiB) seems too small!..”

turned up this-

http://forum.cgsecurity.org/phpBB3/help-drive-too-small-partition-ends-after-disk-limits-t325.html

It take some studying, but there are instructions for a procedure which fixed the person’s problem. Look at the Test Disk Log in the post and see if any of it resembles what you have. The (possibly) relevant material is very near the end of the text in the box.

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i had a call from wd support… they conected to my pc reformat drive, returned it to gpt, then windows recognize disk as 2TB, not as it should 3TB drive…

conclusion is that one of plate has died.

thanks to all who contributed and tried to help

I’m glad WD got back to you and found an answer. I’m sorry the news was not better. I don’t remember; are you within warranty? I hope you can RMA.

hard drive has only six months, and its a WD RED, with warranty period of 3 years, so i guess it won’t be problem to get new back.

problem is that i lost 3 TB of files… tried after formating to restore some things with easus recovery, but no luck… files are visible, but all corrupted…

Shoot! I know the feeling all too well. I am still trying some fairly extreme measures in hopes of recovering a large number of photo scans from a disk which died rather suddenly.

If you still want to try to recover anything, here’s the utility package I’m using-

http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/

Info-

http://www.hiren.info/articles/recovery/hard-drive-data-recovery-freeware-programs

The download is an ISO image which creates a CD that can boot to a stripped down Windows XP, DOS, or Linux. There are very many different tools on the disk which run in one or another of the OS’s.

Good luck, if you try. It’s a great emergency tool package to have around in any case.

UPDATE: The Hirens CD absolutely saved my data! Get the ISO, burn a CD, boot from it into the default option for Linux. If the drive does not mount, try hitting it up with the Drive Status app which is on the desktop. That got my balky drive to mount and I got everything I wanted copied to a good drive. I would suggest disconnecting all drives except your Source and Destination drives so as to avoid any unfortunate accidents. It also makes it easier to know which drive is which under Linux naming. Volume labels may or may not appear.

Given all that the drive has been through at this point it may not work out, but I would certainly try!

Best of Luck!