Cloning Seagate external HDD while running chkdsk f/r/x?

[emjay.lee]

This is going to be long and confused and the questions at the end simple. But I need to give you the background.

My Seagate external HDD 5TB has been wonky for a while. And yes I know I should have backed it up. But in any case after a couple of system crashes i suddenly showed up as Local disk, inaccessible, etc, etc. Showed as RAW in Disk mgm. Downloaded Seatools and first two basic tests were green, then did the Short test and it warned there were bad sectors. For some reason it suddenly shows up as an SCIS drive in Device Manager and it apparently works fine and has migrated and has updated drivers. Shows up with proper name in file explorer but still not accessible Hmm. Go back to Disk mgm suddenly it's NTSF GPT and there are four partitions, two unallocated, one other and one main partition which corresponds to size. Every partition is healthy. It shows up as Seagate Expansion in File Explorer but Properties show 0/0.

I open Easeus Partition Master, check properties for the main partition and halleluljah! Every damned file is there with the proper size (it's media files). So I figure I'll clone it to the new hdd I just bought, Except, I'm an idiot so I contact Microsoft and ask what I should do, they tell me to run cmd chkdsk LETTER: f/ r/x/ Righto, I do so and now I suddenly have two Seagate hdd with the same letter in File Explorer - still not accessible. Meanwhile after 18 hours in stage 4, 178 files out of 95720 files have been checked and the estimated time remaining is two weeks give or take a few hours. I hop back to Easeus Partition Master, yes the same structure, main partition correct, *unallocated 2, :* Other 128MB, unused 0. Go to properties of main parition, nope, no files there.

So (finally) question, can I cancel the chkdsk command, and 2 can I clone the healthy partition to the new hdd, possibly even while the damned chkdsk is running? Partition still shows that the healthy parition is filled. I want to avoid recovery since my experience is that 90% of all media files recovered are unplayable and unfixable.

This honestly is the weirdest thing I have ever come across. Has anyone had any similar experience and how do I solve the bloody thing?

 

[seagate_surfer]

Hello emjay.lee. The only way to stop a chkdsk, is to press the power button, which can lead to file or file system corruption. Also, the idea of cloning the healthy partition while the chkdsk is running wont work as the HDD is being used at the time. Based on the scenario you are describing you may want to check your warranty in case the drive needs replacing.

 

[emjay.lee]

The warranty may or may not still be valid I'll check, but honestly I don't care about that but about the literally hundreds of media files I have stored on it. In any case I panicked at the thought of all my files being destroyed so I just basically shut down command prompt, restarted and prayed to the computer gods. Interestingly enough the unallocated partitions have now disappeared from disk management but are still in easeus partition master. In device manager the disk is still SCSI, healthy and migrated.

When I check the main partition I do have a folder with what appears to be saved logs. But hopefully I can now clone the partition to the new HDD? Then we'll see what happens to the old one. That's definitely not the priority right now. Recovery, as I said, have never worked for me since 90% media files have been corrupted and unplayable and I have tried basically every damned avi/mkv/mp4/whatever repair tools on the market. Luckily most commercial ones have a try before you buy.

 

[seagate_surfer]

emjay.lee, Seagate has a Do it Yourself option for retrieving your files and there is even a try before you buy option. Just in case you would be interested in this. Basically it will scan you drive and let you know what can and can not be recovered. Our Knowledge Base has alot more info about how it works. This could save you time in determining if your information is salvageable.

 

[emjay.lee]

thanks i might try that but i'm hoping the cloning will work. there's literally years of memories and other things on that drive. as someone familiar with seagate what are the odds i can access my files on the new drive?

 

[seagate_surfer]

thanks i might try that but i'm hoping the cloning will work. there's literally years of memories and other things on that drive. as someone familiar with seagate what are the odds i can access my files on the new drive?

Tough to tell really. The health of the drive in question and integrity of the files has a lot to do with it. Many variables

 

[emjay.lee]

yeah what's so weird is how it keeps changing format. ok, help, help, help. Easeus found no errors in the main partition and suddenly up pops bloody command prompt again! Dammit

 

[emjay.lee]

command prompt found 0 bad sectors and rebuilt the file system and no further action is required and quit. And what the hell, now easeus is running a surface test without me doing anything. This is kinda insane

 

[seagate_surfer]

command prompt found 0 bad sectors and rebuilt the file system and no further action is required and quit. And what the hell, now easeus is running a surface test without me doing anything. This is kinda insane

If you really want to check on the health of the Seagate drive, run our free Seatools software. It will let you know in what state the drive is in.

 

[emjay.lee]

Already did so, first two tests checked out, SMART and Short Drive checked out. Got worried that the Short Generic would mess something up. It's just a scan?

 

[emjay.lee]

oh wait I did do the short generic one as well

 

[emjay.lee]

right and that failed

 

[emjay.lee]

and it told med to run Seatools for DOS? So burned a dvd

 

[emjay.lee]

oh and it says that now is a good time to have a backup, but that's all I want!!! to backup the files, but I can't, hence the cloning attempts

 

[seagate_surfer]

oh and it says that now is a good time to have a backup, but that's all I want!!! to backup the files, but I can't, hence the cloning attempts

Just keep us posted on the progress. Good luck!!!

 

[emjay.lee]

Will do, thanks for listening to my desperate ramblings 🙂

 

[seagate_surfer]

Will do, thanks for listening to my desperate ramblings 🙂

No worries, that is why we are here.

 

[emjay.lee]

So, me again. After (literally) banging my head against the desk. Trying every recovery program there is, I finally checked properties. I had done so before I hasten to add and found it odd that I could not read it without permission. So off I went, found that for some unknown reason it had wiped all permissions except system and administrators. As soon as I added all the necessary permissions - checked another hdd - voila! It appeared like magic. So, hounding all my poor relatives and friends in a vain attempt to recreate some files, buying a 6TB hdd. It's now working like a charm again.

Seriously, sometimes I just get very tired of myself.

 

[seagate_surfer]

OMG! The answer was in front of our noses. Well guess that taught both of us a lesson to check for the simplest solution first. Hope you did not damage the desk with your head because I would have done the same thing. Glad you solved it and truly enjoyed engaging with you. Take care!