Chkdsk failing for external drive on both repair and in OS - unspecified error occurred (766f6c756d652e63 3f1)

[looopdokter]

Hi Everyone,

I keep getting prompted to repair my external 3gb hard drive every time I plug it in asking me to scan it with chkdsk. It's currently formatted in exFAT so I can easily swap its usage in between my Mac and my Windows systems. I honestly can't recall whether I did that on MacOSX or on Windows.

Regardless, recently I noticed all of a sudden I was unable to cut from and paste to it - only copy. This coincided with the message asking me to scan it or continue using it, so I suspect a sector is borked somewhere. To further add to my frustrations, my desktop won't boot up with it turned on and stays stuck at the options screen to boot into BIOS/boot selection/etc., so I have to turn it off and turn it on

I have tried scanning it from within Windows 7's cmd prompt and it fails - even after I dismount it. I have tried right clicking on the drive going to Properties>and then loading up Check Disk from there and it fails. It gives the error of "unspecified error occurred (766f6c756d652e63 3f1)" for both methods. I then grabbed a Windows 7 repair disk I had kicking around and tried running it within the repair environment and it kicks back the same error. Interestingly when I run sfc /scannow, it says that there's an existing repair waiting and that I should reboot. Of course, I have to power off the drive so I my machine will boot and nothing seems to happen.

I boot back into Windows RE and it's the same frustrating sequence all over again.

To complicate matters, the Windows Repair DVD I have is now complaining it's not valid for the type of Windows 7 installation I have (x64 Home I believe) - which is odd because it *was* working. Now my Windows installation (which is on a separate hard drive) won't boot and I'm getting complaints of BOOTMGR missing. I have tried repairing the MBR and making sure the Windows partition is active (it is) using Partition Wizard Boot CD free version.

HELLLLLLP! I work in IT and this is doing my head in. I've been trying to fix my machine for over 8 hours now and I've finally resorted to asking for help.

 

[Inachu]

Your pc must have a bios diagnostics that you can get into. The BIOS can diagnose your entire hardware including your hard drive and will tell you if it is failing the S.M.A.R.T. TEST After the test if it does not pass then it means your drive is failing and you will need to buy a new hard drive.

Reply back here once you have done the BIOS diagnostic test and tell us of your results.
If the drive passes then your problem is a software problem and we can go on from there.

 

[looopdokter]

I looked through the settings of the BIOS and don't see anything listed for diagnostics. I can use something like Hiren's Boot CD to further troubleshoot, but I don't understand why all of a sudden my Boot Manager would be toast.

 

[looopdokter]

I should add that now I'm not even getting something about the Boot Manager being non-existent. Now I'm getting: "Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Inter Boot Media in select Boot device and press a key." So basically now it's not even recognizing my drive existing. Bizarre.