[SOLVED] Hard drive is locked after 'Clean All' command in diskpart

[Pop Tom]

Hi, I was given an Acer pc that wouldn't start up with Win 10 and a 500gb Western Digital caviar blue disk. After failed attempts to fix it to boot up I took out the disk and put it in my PC and ran a chkdsk and several files and security values were recovered or fixed. Then I look to see what was on the hard drive and it had a manufacturer recovery partition on it for Win 7 which was originally with the pc.

So I opened up diskpart and did a clean operation and created a partition and formatted it. After that it showed up in the list of drives and was working fine.

Next I ran a recovery program to retrieve pictures that the other party wanted off the disk. Then virus warning started popping up so I quit. Then I ran a virus program to rid the virus files on my system and restarted the PC. When it came on it ran a short chkdsk on the drive in question and then it disappeared from the disk list.

Next I opened up diskpart and the drive was listed but unallocated . So I thought I would do a clean all command and it ran for a long time into the night and the next morning. I shut it down hoping it was just froze up.

So I start up the pc and try to initialize the disk and it says there is a device i/o error. Then I ran data lifeguard tools to do a full erase to see if that would help but it comes up with error "code 20 the drive is locked".

Smart test passes but short or extended tests fail. Another program shows all bad sectors. I ran seatools and it says that the drive is securely locked and can't be read. How did the drive get locked and is there a way to unlock it and get it to work again?

 

[SteveRX4]

Can you see the disk in bios?

And in disk manager?

 

[Pop Tom]

Yes it's there. Turns out it's just a bad hard drive. Was able to unlock it but had too many bad sectors and didn't pass a smart test.

 

[fzabkar]

Hi, I was given an Acer pc that wouldn't start up with Win 10 and a 500gb Western Digital caviar blue disk. After failed attempts to fix it to boot up I took out the disk and put it in my PC and ran a chkdsk and several files and security values were recovered or fixed. Then I look to see what was on the hard drive and it had a manufacturer recovery partition on it for Win 7 which was originally with the pc.

So I opened up diskpart and did a clean operation and created a partition and formatted it. After that it showed up in the list of drives and was working fine.

Next I ran a recovery program to retrieve pictures that the other party wanted off the disk. Then virus warning started popping up so I quit. Then I ran a virus program to rid the virus files on my system and restarted the PC. When it came on it ran a short chkdsk on the drive in question and then it disappeared from the disk list.

Next I opened up diskpart and the drive was listed but unallocated . So I thought I would do a clean all command and it ran for a long time into the night and the next morning. I shut it down hoping it was just froze up.

So I start up the pc and try to initialize the disk and it says there is a device i/o error. Then I ran data lifeguard tools to do a full erase to see if that would help but it comes up with error "code 20 the drive is locked".

Smart test passes but short or extended tests fail. Another program shows all bad sectors. I ran seatools and it says that the drive is securely locked and can't be read. How did the drive get locked and is there a way to unlock it and get it to work again?

You did so many things wrong that it's hard to know where to start.

You should NEVER run CHKDSK against a failing hard drive. Instead you should clone it with a tool which understands how to deal with bad sectors, eg ddrescue or HDDSuperClone. Then run data recovery software against the clone.

You should never format a drive if you want to recover its data. Formatting is data destructive. To paraphrase a data recovery guy, that would be like shooting someone who has terminal cancer because a shotgun wound is easier to deal with.

 

[USAFRet]

chkdsk
clean
format
attempted file recovery - Fail due to viruses
(maybe) remove infected files
chkdsk
clean all
Attempt initialize - Fail due to I/O error
Attempted Data Lifeguard "full erase" - fail

Every step along the way was just another nail in the coffin.

That drive is dead. Even if it were not 'dead', any data recovery possibility is long gone.

 

[SteveRX4]

Yes it's there. Turns out it's just a bad hard drive. Was able to unlock it but had too many bad sectors and didn't pass a smart test.

I've given up on using hard drives. Now you know why.
I recommend you find a SSD as a replacement.

 

[hang-the-9]

I've given up on using hard drives. Now you know why.
I recommend you find a SSD as a replacement.

SSDs also fail. The correct thing to do is have backups of the files for when things break.

 

[USAFRet]

I've given up on using hard drives. Now you know why.
I recommend you find a SSD as a replacement.

My 2 most recent storage device fails:
1x HDD, WD Green. 5 weeks out of the box.
1x SSD, 960GB Sandisk. Died absolutely suddenly, at 3 years 33 days old. Poof, done.
33 days past the 3 year warranty.

 

[SteveRX4]

I don't think SSDs now fail near as often as mechanical drives.
See https://www.backblaze.com/blog/how-reliable-are-ssds/

"Question 1: Do SSDs fail faster than HDDs?

Answer: That depends on the technology of the drives and how they’re used. HDDs are better suited for some applications and SSDs for others. SSDs can be expected to last as long or longer than HDDs in most general applications.

Question 2: How long can we reasonably expect an SSD to last?

Answer: An SSD should ideally last as long as its manufacturer expects it to last (e.g. five years), provided that the use of the drive is not excessive for the technology it employs (e.g. using a QLC in an application with a high number of writes). Consult the manufacturer’s recommendations to ensure that how you’re using the SSD matches its best use.

SSDs are a different breed of animal than a HDD and they have their strengths and weaknesses relative to other storage media. The good news is that their strengths — speed, durability, size, power consumption, etc. — are backed by pretty good overall reliability."

 

[USAFRet]

I don't think SSDs now fail near as often as mechanical drives.

Yes, SSD's are proving to be more reliable that spinning drives.
All my systems in the house are SSD only, except for the NAS, and an ancient Tosh laptop.

But they do fail sometimes.

 

[SteveRX4]

Yes it's there. Turns out it's just a bad hard drive. Was able to unlock it but had too many bad sectors and didn't pass a smart test.

Have you replaced it now? What with?