HDD crashed, showing as Unknown Device, need to recover pics of my kids :(

[geenky]

Hello,

My seagate 2TB internal HDD suddenly crashed after a couple of days of weird loading. As the weird behaviour happened just after an automatic update from windows which included video drivers, I didn't think the issue was the HDD itself but windows.

Anyway, now the device is showing as Unknown Device on device manager. If i try to uninstall / reinstall or disable / enable, it just disappears. I reboot, and again it shows as Unknown Device but cannot do much. If I try to run any software to recover data, it won't see the drive so I cannot do it. I dont care about most things in that drive except for all the pics that I unluckily had stored there. Since my kids were born all their pics are in there, and I put them on this drive as it was new, my old HDD of 6 years has not crashed...

I hope someone can please help me, Id greatly appreciate it (you have no idea!)

 

[D_Know_WD]

Hi there geenky,

That is really unpleasant.

My suggestion would be to just attach the drive to another computer. That way you will see if this is a driver related issue. If the drive is properly recognized, just back up the data stored on it.

In case it is not, then I would say that your safest bet would be to contact a data recovery company. I believe it is not recognized by Disk Management right? In that case, you will not be able to access it with software tools.

Let me know in case you have some more questions,
D_Know_WD

 

[geenky]

Hi there geenky,

That is really unpleasant.

My suggestion would be to just attach the drive to another computer. That way you will see if this is a driver related issue. If the drive is properly recognized, just back up the data stored on it.

In case it is not, then I would say that your safest bet would be to contact a data recovery company. I believe it is not recognized by Disk Management right? In that case, you will not be able to access it with software tools.

Let me know in case you have some more questions,
D_Know_WD

Thanks for the answer. Disk mgment doesnt recognize it either, asks me to initialize it 🙁

I do not want to send to a data recovery company just yet as I have confidential info in there too, especially work docs when i work from home. Those docs I dont mind losing them, but would prefer the info is not leaked anywhere

When I get home today I will try to plug it into my other PC, thanks for the advice

 

[geenky]

plugged it in another PC, no luck. Exactly the same.

When I plugged it back, windows started to repair it when booting, but I rebooted and pressed space bar, got me at the same point

 

[D_Know_WD]

Have you tried using a different cable? Do you have a spare one?
Even though this would most probably not help, it will not hurt to try.

From here on, you can:
- Use some other software tools. There are many threads on data recovery in the forum. Keep in mind if there is something wrong with the drive, all these data recovery attempts could affect the data and the drive's condition in a negative way.
- Most of the HDD manufacturers offer their own data recovery services or have trusted partners. You can at least contact those and ask them about the things that concern you.

D_Know_WD

 

[geenky]

Have you tried using a different cable? Do you have a spare one?
Even though this would most probably not help, it will not hurt to try.

From here on, you can:
- Use some other software tools. There are many threads on data recovery in the forum. Keep in mind if there is something wrong with the drive, all these data recovery attempts could affect the data and the drive's condition in a negative way.
- Most of the HDD manufacturers offer their own data recovery services or have trusted partners. You can at least contact those and ask them about the things that concern you.

D_Know_WD

When I tried on a different PC, it was a different cable.

I cannot run anything on it as Windows only sees this disk as an Unknown Device, so I cannot assign a letter on disk management (actually this one asks me to initialize the disk which I obviously havent done). So anything I run under Windows just doesn't see the disk.

After tons of reboots trying things, one time the disk was being recognized and automatically fixed by windows on the start - so i rebooted (stopping the process) and pressed space bar hoping it would get to windows with the drive there, unfortunately it didnt. Again unknown device.

Last night after one more reboot, windows started trying to fix it. I let it run, it is at 8% now and I am still waiting. I plan to leave it till the end.

The first time the device showed unknown I was able to disable / enable and it recognized it. So I went to run photorec which was finding some files, although I have to say it was going super slow - in 1 hour it recovered 69 MBs of files of a 2 TB drive that was 85% full. But it was working. I left it overnight and next morning my PC was off, I dont know why. No power outages or anything, and after that the device is unknown device and just disappears when i do disable / enable. 🙁

If this doesnt do the trick, ill think what to do next. A recovery service in here charges from 150$ to 500$ "or more if extra work is required" (quoting the guy from the phone). Not only expensive but I also have work docs that are confidential, might get in trouble if any of those leak.

 

[Yasuoo]

Try to manually re-install the drivers.Sometimes drivers can somehow corrupt/get damaged.Reasons that causes this are from hard freezes,outdated drivers,plugging out power without safely shutting down windows.Visit your driver's website support and check your driver model and Operating System.

 

[geenky]

Try to manually re-install the drivers.Sometimes drivers can somehow corrupt/get damaged.Reasons that causes this are from hard freezes,outdated drivers,plugging out power without safely shutting down windows.Visit your driver's website support and check your driver model and Operating System.

Thanks, I already tried it to no avail.

At the moment it is repairing on the windows startup (the automatic checkdisk) and it has been running for about 40 hours, and it is at 8%. I do not want to interrupt it, as at least it is doing something. Also I touch the drive every once in a while and it feels it is doing something, and not the same pattern over and over - so I assume it is not stuck

 

[geenky]

after 4 days, i found the pc off. I turn it on, and it recognizes the device after i disabled/enabled on device manager. Funny enough, i go to disk management and it is not showing there. I run photorec and it sees the device, i run it and after over an hour it finishes. It found 0 files 🙁

after that my pc would not load anything, not even windows explorer for about 15 mins and i rebooted it. Now unknown device again, back to square 1

f windows f seagate an internal drive barely used (it was never filled and i rarely deleted files from it) after 3 years with 0 power outages should never get corrupted

 

[Fidalco]

I ran into the same issue on my Win7 box and it took me 2 weeks to recover my 2 TB drive, I used Data Rescue from Prosoft, make sure to get the bootable USB drive in the mail. Now I just have to sort through 200GB of photos that are not all in the order I had them but at least the metadata is still intact. Hope this helps.

 

[geenky]

I ran into the same issue on my Win7 box and it took me 2 weeks to recover my 2 TB drive, I used Data Rescue from Prosoft, make sure to get the bootable USB drive in the mail. Now I just have to sort through 200GB of photos that are not all in the order I had them but at least the metadata is still intact. Hope this helps.

thanks so much for the reply.

After rebooting one of these times, I disabled enabled the device for the 100th time and it changed on device manager to the drive. I ran photorec choosing only JPGs and it started finding files, veeeery slowly. So I left it running and so far it has checked 7 million sectors out of 3.9 billion (less than 0.2%) in 1.5 days. I am hoping at some point it picks up, but I plan on letting it run for some time before I touch it.

If this doesnt work I will try Data Rescue. I do not mind sorting through the photos later, it has recovered around 3000 pics (most of them are crap from the browsers cache) but some of them are what I was looking for. I will keep posting here in case my experience helps anyone later.

I am still shocked on how this drive failed with little use and cool temps, and how bad it became in a couple of days that it is almost impossible windows even sees it. I wont use seagate ever again.