This happened last Friday when while I was watching HIMYM , accidentally, I removed my external Hard Disk.
As usual , I stayed calm and replugged the USB cable , but to my horror , windows scared the hell out of me by displaying something like this:
"Raw disk detected, you need to format the disk.Do you want to format it? Yes -- No"
If I pressed no, the message disappeared but on trying to access the drive again, it would come back .On searching a bit on net, I tried out using windows utility "chkdsk", which can help detect and repair faulty sectors.But to my despair, it too didn't work out, prompting similar excuse of the disk being raw.
The harddisk I was using was a 1TB HCTU3 Buffalo Ministation Portable Disk containing all my important data.The fact that I was unable to access it freaked me out.
With USB devices, usually whether it is virus removal or non-compatibility of drivers in windows or maybe some other issue too, trying out the device on a linux machine would generally be my ray of hope.As I have Ubuntu too installed on my machine, I booted into it to check out, if it could help.But here too it was unable to mount with the device giving similar kind of messages
(but much more elaborate and scary :P).
So now was the time to dig the net using the mighty Google to see if there was any way out.But before that I checked out with the warranty of my device.Unlike for other electronic devices, for which the warranty is generally for six-months to a year, to my surprise this disk had a warranty of 3 years :)
In my dear developing country, unfortunately, I came to know from the Buffalo website that there is only one service center and that too in Chennai.But there was a little problem here.I couldn't find the hd box and bill(which because I got from online shopping website Infibeam.com would be a mutli folded piece of regular paper, I usually didn't take care of).Anyways, from my earlier experiences with iBall wherein inspite of bill, I was able to avail the warranty on the basis of S/N of the device, I tried to call and ask if they could too.
After about half hr of continuous trial to their call center(bored of listening "All our customer executives are busy , please hold the line or try again later"), I finally got connected.I started out with the hard-disk problem and on telling the type of error, he immediately told that "Sir, your hd is corrupted , you need to reformat it.",to which I immediately asked if I could recover data as it was very important and he replied "Sorry but its not possible.You need to format it.Right click on the disk icon and click format.If it doesn't work , you can call back and we can try to help out".As I called them up while I was at work, I couldn't try out.On reaching home,I tried out using format - Selecting the default quick format and format label, and pressed "START".
Waiting for a minute, windows(sad to blame it) disappointed me again , saying " Unable to complete Format".
Again, I tried formatting in linux. But now unlike before, my disk wasn't being detected in linux.
Hmm... Its been a real long story and I guess I have already bored you by explaining my trials.Cutting down the other various tools,trials and things I tried out, let me jump directly to the method to recover/reformat any usb storage device:
As usual , I stayed calm and replugged the USB cable , but to my horror , windows scared the hell out of me by displaying something like this:
"Raw disk detected, you need to format the disk.Do you want to format it? Yes -- No"
If I pressed no, the message disappeared but on trying to access the drive again, it would come back .On searching a bit on net, I tried out using windows utility "chkdsk", which can help detect and repair faulty sectors.But to my despair, it too didn't work out, prompting similar excuse of the disk being raw.
The harddisk I was using was a 1TB HCTU3 Buffalo Ministation Portable Disk containing all my important data.The fact that I was unable to access it freaked me out.
With USB devices, usually whether it is virus removal or non-compatibility of drivers in windows or maybe some other issue too, trying out the device on a linux machine would generally be my ray of hope.As I have Ubuntu too installed on my machine, I booted into it to check out, if it could help.But here too it was unable to mount with the device giving similar kind of messages
(but much more elaborate and scary :P).
So now was the time to dig the net using the mighty Google to see if there was any way out.But before that I checked out with the warranty of my device.Unlike for other electronic devices, for which the warranty is generally for six-months to a year, to my surprise this disk had a warranty of 3 years :)
In my dear developing country, unfortunately, I came to know from the Buffalo website that there is only one service center and that too in Chennai.But there was a little problem here.I couldn't find the hd box and bill(which because I got from online shopping website Infibeam.com would be a mutli folded piece of regular paper, I usually didn't take care of).Anyways, from my earlier experiences with iBall wherein inspite of bill, I was able to avail the warranty on the basis of S/N of the device, I tried to call and ask if they could too.
After about half hr of continuous trial to their call center(bored of listening "All our customer executives are busy , please hold the line or try again later"), I finally got connected.I started out with the hard-disk problem and on telling the type of error, he immediately told that "Sir, your hd is corrupted , you need to reformat it.",to which I immediately asked if I could recover data as it was very important and he replied "Sorry but its not possible.You need to format it.Right click on the disk icon and click format.If it doesn't work , you can call back and we can try to help out".As I called them up while I was at work, I couldn't try out.On reaching home,I tried out using format - Selecting the default quick format and format label, and pressed "START".
Waiting for a minute, windows(sad to blame it) disappointed me again , saying " Unable to complete Format".
Again, I tried formatting in linux. But now unlike before, my disk wasn't being detected in linux.
Hmm... Its been a real long story and I guess I have already bored you by explaining my trials.Cutting down the other various tools,trials and things I tried out, let me jump directly to the method to recover/reformat any usb storage device:
Even thought you can't access the disk directly, there are data recovery tools which can help you recover data.
So the steps are,
1/ If you want to get back the data, download a data recovery software.
I used iCare Recovery tool(http://www.icare-recovery.com/) .The free version though can help you recover just 10 files.
Another alternative which I tried out was TestDisk, which couldnt help much though .But I just found out that their tool Photorec(http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec) might equally work.
In my case I was able to recover 365GB/760 GB from my disk, because primarily you need to have additional storage disk where you can dump the recovered data.I didn't care for the remaining portion as it was crap of movies and TV series.
Note :"You should not recover the data on your corrupted disk itself as it can cause overwriting of some other data and that might be lost"
2/ Delete all the corrupted data from the disk.
For this I used a utility called "DBAN" - Darik Boot and Nuke.
To use it, you need to download burn the iso on a disk and boot from the ISO.
I used Universal USB Installer to burn it onto my 1GB USB pen drive.(
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb-installer-easy-as-1-2-3/)
Now with the USB plugged into the computer, restart it, and when the first screen comes,press the key which the screen might tell (form me F2 or F11) to goto the boot menu.There again on the boot type, move you USB device up the list(F5/F6) so that on next restart it will boot from there.Press F10 to SAVE and EXIT.
Now when the computer restarts, if things are right you will get Blue screen of DBAN.
Please note here the settings are important as , it you select the default one, it might take 3-4 days(I waited 1.5 days for my first try) to delete the disk.
So follow the steps as below:
(a) Press "Enter" to go in Interactive mode.
(b) It will search/register all the disks on/attached to your machine.
(c) Press Up/Down keys to navigate and "Space to Select'
(d) Press "V" and select "Verify Off"
(e) Press "M" to select Quick Erase.(Don't remember if it was M or something else, but you can figure out by the legend at the bottom of the screen.What is important is to select Quick Erase,Other oprions were DoD etc..)
(f)Now Start the process.
Basically DBAN will fill you HD with all zeros- that is blank.For my 1TB hd, it took 11hrs for it to complete.
Note if you select wrongly , like I did first time, you can stop the process by turning of the PC and starting all over again.
After it completes, shut down your PC directly.Remove the pen drive.And turn it on again. Goto boot menu and restore the boot priority back to default and restart.
Now in your windows, the disk may/will not be shown in your My Computer, thought it will be detected.This is because your disk is blank.We need to format it.
3/ Reformat using windows utility.
(a)Right click on My Computer and click Manage.
(b)There goto Disk management and it will show your disk.Click on it and it may ask to format to NTFS. Select the disk name and do it.It might take 5-10 min.
(c)After that eject by "safely remove drive" on the bottom task bar, and reinsert the disk again.
You should be able access the disk.
4/Optional: Run chkdsk on your disk to repair bad sectors if any.
Cheers!! Lets enjoy !!
Let me know if you get stuck anywhere as I have spent around three days with it and I guess have got a good background into repairing/recovering the disk drives.
Thanks,
SAV
So the steps are,
1/ If you want to get back the data, download a data recovery software.
I used iCare Recovery tool(http://www.icare-recovery.com/) .The free version though can help you recover just 10 files.
Another alternative which I tried out was TestDisk, which couldnt help much though .But I just found out that their tool Photorec(http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec) might equally work.
In my case I was able to recover 365GB/760 GB from my disk, because primarily you need to have additional storage disk where you can dump the recovered data.I didn't care for the remaining portion as it was crap of movies and TV series.
Note :"You should not recover the data on your corrupted disk itself as it can cause overwriting of some other data and that might be lost"
2/ Delete all the corrupted data from the disk.
For this I used a utility called "DBAN" - Darik Boot and Nuke.
To use it, you need to download burn the iso on a disk and boot from the ISO.
I used Universal USB Installer to burn it onto my 1GB USB pen drive.(
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb-installer-easy-as-1-2-3/)
Now with the USB plugged into the computer, restart it, and when the first screen comes,press the key which the screen might tell (form me F2 or F11) to goto the boot menu.There again on the boot type, move you USB device up the list(F5/F6) so that on next restart it will boot from there.Press F10 to SAVE and EXIT.
Now when the computer restarts, if things are right you will get Blue screen of DBAN.
Please note here the settings are important as , it you select the default one, it might take 3-4 days(I waited 1.5 days for my first try) to delete the disk.
So follow the steps as below:
(a) Press "Enter" to go in Interactive mode.
(b) It will search/register all the disks on/attached to your machine.
(c) Press Up/Down keys to navigate and "Space to Select'
(d) Press "V" and select "Verify Off"
(e) Press "M" to select Quick Erase.(Don't remember if it was M or something else, but you can figure out by the legend at the bottom of the screen.What is important is to select Quick Erase,Other oprions were DoD etc..)
(f)Now Start the process.
Basically DBAN will fill you HD with all zeros- that is blank.For my 1TB hd, it took 11hrs for it to complete.
Note if you select wrongly , like I did first time, you can stop the process by turning of the PC and starting all over again.
After it completes, shut down your PC directly.Remove the pen drive.And turn it on again. Goto boot menu and restore the boot priority back to default and restart.
Now in your windows, the disk may/will not be shown in your My Computer, thought it will be detected.This is because your disk is blank.We need to format it.
3/ Reformat using windows utility.
(a)Right click on My Computer and click Manage.
(b)There goto Disk management and it will show your disk.Click on it and it may ask to format to NTFS. Select the disk name and do it.It might take 5-10 min.
(c)After that eject by "safely remove drive" on the bottom task bar, and reinsert the disk again.
You should be able access the disk.
4/Optional: Run chkdsk on your disk to repair bad sectors if any.
Cheers!! Lets enjoy !!
Let me know if you get stuck anywhere as I have spent around three days with it and I guess have got a good background into repairing/recovering the disk drives.
Thanks,
SAV