Sep 19, 2020
19
0
10
Hi all,

So I have an external hard drive that has been corrupted to unknown reasons (probably old, or dropped, or due to not ejecting properly), it works fine just seems to be hella slow!

I'm trying to get the files off it onto my PC so I can format the drive and go from there. but it takes 30-90 minutes to transfer a simple 20 minute anime episode.

My question is; What are some ways that I can get the files off the PC with ease, fast (preferably without a program)?

Thanks in advanced!
 
Solution
At this point there is nothing you can do if you don’t have a backup of these files. You will just need to let it take as long as it takes, however there is a good chance that the drive will die completely before it finishes.

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Prominent
Dec 27, 2020
48
3
565
Hi!

This is not the mind reader group: what kind of drive exactly? :) As I wrote to another post: typical WD and Seagate HDD disease is a slowdown (named "slow responding issue" - usually it has one or more weak heads and the resulting unstable / bad sectors that are diligently collected by the firmware and this slows down the drive - i.e. overrides the firmware to stop write / read operations because sector list data cannot be updated) the first sign is the dying of the drive: weak heads constantly developing bad sectors - if one or more of them in the disk's Service Area - named SA, where the neccessary informations stored to up & running the drive itself). When they start to slow down noticeably it means their end, because under the hood, only the "chewing gum" holds them together: they are full of bad sectors, but the firmware can still replace them from the spare area for a while. In this case (using home methods), your drive can't stand a full user data area backup. If the drive has not stopped completely, special software developed for data recovery can be used to disable the weak heads and turn off realtime error-correcting background processes, thus speeding up the drive, then the other heads can make a Bit-perfect disk image copy of the sectors covered by them at normal speed, and then by switching the faulty heads back on, one can also try to save it's sectors. Thus, by putting as little stress on the drive as possible, there may be a minimal chance of recovering the data without breaking it and replacing the head block (because that would make it significantly more expensive - unfortunately, the heads have often been degraded to such an extent that the replacement cannot be swept away).

HDDSuperclone (it runs in Ubuntu too) has script to manage WD's slow responding issue.

Or take it to the nearest data recovery company in your area.
 
Sep 19, 2020
19
0
10
At this point there is nothing you can do if you don’t have a backup of these files. You will just need to let it take as long as it takes, however there is a good chance that the drive will die completely before it finishes.
yeah i thought so, thanks for answering anyways, there was no harm in asking.
 
Sep 19, 2020
19
0
10
Hi!

This is not the mind reader group: what kind of drive exactly? :) As I wrote to another post: typical WD and Seagate HDD disease is a slowdown (named "slow responding issue" - usually it has one or more weak heads and the resulting unstable / bad sectors that are diligently collected by the firmware and this slows down the drive - i.e. overrides the firmware to stop write / read operations because sector list data cannot be updated) the first sign is the dying of the drive: weak heads constantly developing bad sectors - if one or more of them in the disk's Service Area - named SA, where the neccessary informations stored to up & running the drive itself). When they start to slow down noticeably it means their end, because under the hood, only the "chewing gum" holds them together: they are full of bad sectors, but the firmware can still replace them from the spare area for a while. In this case (using home methods), your drive can't stand a full user data area backup. If the drive has not stopped completely, special software developed for data recovery can be used to disable the weak heads and turn off realtime error-correcting background processes, thus speeding up the drive, then the other heads can make a Bit-perfect disk image copy of the sectors covered by them at normal speed, and then by switching the faulty heads back on, one can also try to save it's sectors. Thus, by putting as little stress on the drive as possible, there may be a minimal chance of recovering the data without breaking it and replacing the head block (because that would make it significantly more expensive - unfortunately, the heads have often been degraded to such an extent that the replacement cannot be swept away).

HDDSuperclone (it runs in Ubuntu too) has script to manage WD's slow responding issue.

Or take it to the nearest data recovery company in your area.
alot of steps and words, but i think i get it. thanks for the detailed response.