[SOLVED] External hard drive freezes / hangs up / locks up Windows 10

[docboggle]

I have a Seagate SRD00F2 p/n: 1d7ap3-500 3 Tb external hard drive that's getting flaky.

I had it being accessed by a Windows 7 PC, and one day the drive / letter simply vanished. The drive does power up and spin when powered and plugged into a USB port, but the Windows 7 PC refuses to recognize the drive as a drive.

I then took the external drive to a Windows 10 PC. It powered up and spun, and Windows 10 did recognize it as a new Drive D. It very slowly accessed the data, but when it hit around 95% of the way through a full scan, the Windows 10 PC just sort of freezes up.

I tried booting the Windows 10 PC in "safe mode", but when I plugged the drive in, it claims it found something it didn't recognize at the USB port the drive was ported to.

I'd hate to lose all that data. Does anyone have suggestions on how I can get a computer to recognize the drive to be able to attempt some sort of scan and repair operation? I'm stumped.

Here's some further info - I ran Disk Management on the Windows 7 machine with the hard drive, and it CAN see there is something there. Here's a screenshot.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15iMxJIsovgsBnu9A_JVi4Ix7krVRWqm1/view?usp=sharing

I can't force it to partition with either MBR or GPT options, though.

 

[USAFRet]

I'd hate to lose all that data.

That is specifically what backups are for.

If Windows can't recognize it....your options are vanishingly small.
Any "scan" relies on the OS being able to see it.

 

[docboggle]

That is specifically what backups are for.

If Windows can't recognize it....your options are vanishingly small.
Any "scan" relies on the OS being able to see it.

Thank you for the feedback.

Do you think some other 'flavor' of Windows like XP or Vista might be able to "see" that external hard drive, allowing me to run a scandisk? I was thinking that because my Windows 7 doesn't even try to give the drive a letter, while Windows 10 at least does give it a letter, but bombs out 95% the way through trying to scan its data.

 

[USAFRet]

Thank you for the feedback.

Do you think some other 'flavor' of Windows like XP or Vista might be able to "see" that external hard drive, allowing me to run a scandisk? I was thinking that because my Windows 7 doesn't even try to give the drive a letter, while Windows 10 at least does give it a letter, but bombs out 95% the way through trying to scan its data.

Probably not.

You might try a Linux LiveUSB.

And just to see if the drive can be read. No scanning or anything.

 

[docboggle]

Probably not.

You might try a Linux LiveUSB.

And just to see if the drive can be read. No scanning or anything.

Here's some further info - I ran Disk Management, and it CAN see there is something there. Here's a screenshot.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15iMxJIsovgsBnu9A_JVi4Ix7krVRWqm1/view?usp=sharing

I can't force it to partition with either MBR or GPT options, though.

 

[USAFRet]

Can't see your google pic.

Upload it to imgur.com, and post the link here.

 

[docboggle]

Sorry about that - I changed the file permissions, so the image link should work now.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15iMxJIsovgsBnu9A_JVi4Ix7krVRWqm1/view?usp=sharing

 

[USAFRet]

If you are at all interested in maybe (but probably not) retrieveing the data, do NOT initialize/format/whatever.